Exports are soaring, as are the quality, image and values of Made in Italy by Nicla Panciera

Exports are soaring, quality is increasing yet there is no halt to the gradual decrease in output and domestic consumption, to the point that, according to Assoenologi (the Italian Enologists Association). Italy is now down to per-capita yearly consumption of 49 liters (12.9 gallons), as compared with 100 in the seventies. Wine is gaining new aficionados among young people and women, but also new markets. By itself it constitutes 40% of Italy's food and produce exports to Canada, the United States and Japan. And the United States is still Italy's premier market. To keep fierce international competition at bay new selling room has to be found, as well as responses to new demands for quality and image from wine lovers.
Following a trend begun about 20 years ago, Italian wine output is decreasing. From 2004 to date, world wine production has been about 300 million hectoliters, 170 million (60%) of which was turned out in the European Union. Italy accounts for 17% of worldwide production and 30% of European Community output. In fact, 48.4 million hectoliters are produced each year on Italian soil. That is a respectable amount but, looked at in the broader picture, it spotlights a gradual decline in volumes, down from 61.7 million hectoliters from 1987 to 1996 and to 51.4 million from 1997 to 2006. A downward trend that reflects a parallel decrease in the amount of land devoted to vineyards (currently 792,000 hectares or 1.96 million acres)), which in the last 15 years has declined by 178,000 hectares).
In addition to product quality (more than 60% of Italian production is within the various denominations of origin: DOCG, DOC and IGT), what continues to grow are export volumes and value. After satisfactory results in 2006, which registered record-breaking growth of 3.2 billion euro, the first half of 2007 confirmed a definite increase in exports, with a 14.5% rise in volume and 11.4% more in worth compared to the same period last year.
This uptake in Italian wine exports began five years ago. The year 2003 was a time of uneasiness, with a decline in volume of 16%, but the upswing was on its way. The following year showed an increase of 6% in volume and 4% in value; in 2005 volume was up 10% and value rose by 3.1%. Exports really took off in 2006, with rises of 11.5% and 5.8%, respectively.
And looking at the business side, if the wine sector has revenue of 10 billion euros, 3.2 billion come from exports. Nearly a third. And it's not surprising that 2 billion euros referred to cellar technology, given the premium quality of Italian-made wines.
Figures that are part of a varied and changing world, that of wine. In fact, while data register a decrease in per-capita domestic consumption, it should also be said that wine is by now divorced from that household context we all know so well, that "smidgeon" of red with every meal, and has entered the empyrean of luxury goods, becoming an upmarket product to enjoy in company mainly outside the home and at every pleasant occasion worth remembering.
So Italian wine is a new kind of product that has gone beyond the classic quality/price team-up toward more complex considerations formerly perhaps considered superfluous, such as identity and image. But nowadays wines provide the cards to play to win out over increasingly fierce foreign competitors. And so, the leverage is on communications and the added value of image to win new customers, without ever forgetting that the future of Italian wine in any case depends on the ability to seek out and conquer new areas abroad.

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