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Issue 723 - March 3rd - 7th 2025 - Expressly created for 3745 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | We have been saying this for a long time (and we try to do it every day with our work on WineNews): communication and the storytelling of wine must find a new language, one that focuses more on what revolves around it, the territories, history, culture, values, gastronomy, the table and conviviality. A reflection that, today - accomplice to a drop in consumption, after years of growth, and the detachment of young people - has become an almost daily “refrain” for those who deal with wine, the focus of the meeting “The language of wine, from training to social” by Ais-Associazione Italiana Sommelier, led by Sandro Camilli, in recent days in Naples.
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| | The obvious and tangible difficulties in the global wine market are reflected in many different ways. One of these, is that of wine investments, of which we have long chronicled the decline in their performance after years of tumultuous growth. This is also confirmed by the traditional “Wealth Report” 2025 of the global real estate agency and luxury specialist, Knight Frank, which highlights just how the wine sector, along with rare and aged whiskies, and art in general, was one of the worst performing in 2024, in an otherwise negative environment. If the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, in general, fell -3.3% in 2024 over 2023, in fact, wine did -9.1% in one year, whiskey -9%, and art -18.3%. But wine’s structural difficulties are also reflected in the value of vineyards. And while some world-renowned areas are holding, others are falling sharply. Such as the Marlborough area in New Zealand, which in 2024 saw prices drop of 33%, to $110,000 per hectare, or the Barossa Valley, in Australia, at -10%, around $60,000 per hectare. Within this framework, however, all of Italy’s best territories among those monitored by the agency seem to be growing, with Barolo, moreover, rising to the top of the world’s most valuable vineyards, at $2.08 million per hectare, up +5%, as are those of Brunello di Montalcino, which are worth, however, half as much ($910,000 per hectare), and quotations for Bolgheri, at $810,000, and Chianti Classico, at $180,000, are also growing +3%. France is holding up, with vineyards in Margaux, Bordeaux, quoted at $1.25 million (down 4%), those in Champagne growing +2% to $1.04 million per hectare, and those in the Côte de Nuits in Burgundy holding at $1.09 million, as well as (but with infinitely lower values) that of the Côte de Provence at $100,000 per hectare, while growing by +5% the values of the Loria vineyards, at $90,000, and losing, on the other hand, -10% those of the Côtes du Rhone, at $30,000. Among others (in more detail) the value of vineyards in Essex, UK, grows by +20%, to $120,000 per hectare, where Kent and Sussex vineyards are stable at $110,000. In the U.S., in Napa Valley, the value of the valuable Ruthefort vineyards is stable, at $1.2 million. | |
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| | In Italy, the much-discussed (but tumultuously growing in the world) no-alcohol wines can be produced recently, because the ministerial decree regulating them, passed in late December 2024, arrived in the Official Gazette a couple of weeks ago. But in any case, at the EU level, now, only with certain dealcolation techniques, no-alcohol wines can also be organic. This is provided for in EU Commission Delegated Regulation 2025/405 of December 13, 2024 (published in the European Official Journal on February 26, 2025), which amends Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and Council regarding winemaking practices. This is, therefore, a further opening on a segment in which even the big players in the global “traditional” wine industry are investing heavily (in more detail). | |
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| | | A market of big numbers for Italian wine, Germany remains a key marketplace for our wineries, which, in the first months of 2024, saw more than 481.8 million liters of tricolor wine shipped to Berlin (down slightly by -2.6% on the same period in 2023), for receipts of €1.1 billion (+4%), a figure second only to that of the U.S. (at €1.7 billion in the same period). According to NielsenIQ data for the German Wine Institute (Dwi), in the 12 months between August 1, 2023, and July 31, 2024, volumes of wine purchased fell by -4%, while the value of sales fell by -5%, for a total consumed of 15.9 million hectoliters of wine and 2.6 million hectoliters of sparkling wine. With total per capita consumption at 22.2 liters of wine, down from the 22.5 recorded in 2024. In this context, among foreign wines, Italy remains the leader and has kept its market share unchanged at 18%, followed by Spain and France. A declining market, then, but a decisive one for Italian wine, and one to be guarded, like all, in times of difficulty, so as not to lose ground. As will the more than 800 Italian exhibitors leaving for ProWein (Dusseldorf, March 16-18, 2025). | |
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| | | Settesoli, one of the most important wineries in Sicily, is the lead partner in the “White Wine Identity” supply chain contract, a four-year project involving the University of Palermo and 10 other wineries (7 of which are Sicilian, in more detail) with the aim of promoting in Italy and abroad the white wine produced in Sicilian lands, and reorganizing the structure to make it more modern and technologically advanced. With an investment, on the part of Cantine Settesoli, of 10 million euros. | |
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| | U.S. duties at 25% even on European agricultural products seem to be getting closer. In recent days, U.S. President Donald Trump, on his social “Truth”, wrote “to big farmers in the United States: get ready to produce a lot of agricultural products to sell inside the United States. Tariffs on outside products will be triggered on April 2. Have fun”, referring explicitly, then, to the agricultural sector. The list of products that will actually be affected is not yet known, while estimates of the possible damage on a market, the U.S., that for Italian wine is worth nearly 2 billion euros in exports, a quarter of its total, and for all agribusiness, 7.8 billion euros out of 69 of total exports (in more detail the reactions of the sector in Italy). | |
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| | An exceptional special guest, testifying to the enormous importance of agribusiness made in Italy: on March 22, President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella will be a guest in the Forum of Oil and Wine Culture, in Rome, the Bibenda event now in its 44th edition. Deux ex machina behind President Mattarella’s presence is Franco Maria Ricci, who heads the Fis - Italian Sommelier Foundation, one of the world’s largest centers of wine culture. | |
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