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Issue 746 - August 11th - 15th 2025 - Expressly created for 3687 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | They remain higher, and with a trend of slight growth, Italian wine stocks in the annual comparison between July 2025 and 2024, although decreasing compared to a month ago, but at harvest time. According to the August 2025 report of “Cantina Italia”, compiled by Icqrf, there are 39.8 million hectoliters in stock in Italian wineries as of July 30, 2025, which is 8.8% lower than June 30, 2025 (-3.8 million hectoliters), but 0.5% higher than July 31, 2024 (+204,058 hectoliters). To these figures should be added 2.3 million hectoliters of must and 58,747 hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation. 56.3% of the wine held is in PDO, 25.2 % in PGI (in more detail).
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| | After months and months of negative signs, it is early, very early, to indulge in easy enthusiasm. But, in a complicated 2025 for the fine wines market, at least Italy is registering a small turnaround. The Italy 100, in fact, the index of Italian wines from Liv-Ex, the segment’s reference platform, grew +0.6% in July 2025 over June. A drop in a glass of water, or rather wine, for the index formed by Bartolo Mascarello’s Barolo of all vintages from 2011 to 2020, as well as Gaja’s Barbaresco, Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino Riserva (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015), Bruno Giacosa’s Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto Riserva (2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017), from all vintages from 2012 to 2021 of Tenuta San Guido’s Sassicaia, Antinori’s Solaia and Tignanello, and Frescobaldi Group’s Ornellaia and Masseto, as well as from Soldera Case Basse’s 100% Sangiovese Toscana Igt (vintages from 2009 to 2019, excluding 2010). An exception, on a year that remains in the negative and sees the performance of all other indexes, basically French, worsen again in the first 7 months of 2025. Because if the Italy 100 makes -2.8% since the beginning of the year over the same period 2024, the Liv-Ex 100, the platform’s benchmark index, still losing a few decimals in July, marks -5.2% since the beginning of the year (an index that includes for Italy Bartolo Mascarello’s Barolo 2019, Bruno Giacosa’s Barolo Falletto Vigna Le Rocche Riserva 2017, Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino Riserva 2014 and 2015, Biondi-Santi’s Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2016, Gaia’s Barbaresco 2019, Tenuta San Guido’s Sassicaia 2019, 2020 and 2021, Antinori’s Solaia 2021 and Tignanello 2020 and 2021, and Frescobaldi Group’s Ornellaia 2021 and Masseto 2020 and 2021, as well as the “new entry” of Soldera Case Basse’s 100% Sangiovese Toscana IGT 2019). Worse still is the Liv-Ex 1000, the broadest of the indices, which loses -5.4%, trailed lower by the Bordeaux 500, which expands its decline to -6.6% since the beginning of the year, the Burgundy 150 at -5.8%, and the Champagne 50, at -5.1%, to stop us at the most important indices. Waiting for a turnaround that, however, as of today, remains little more than a mirage, at least in the short term.
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| | Like other appellations, from Chianti to Pinot Grigio, Asti Docg is also cutting yields to keep the focus between supply and demand high, solidifying markets. The Asti Docg Consortium has announced a reduction in yields, for the 2025 harvest, from 100 to 90 quintals per hectare, 5 of which will be used for storage; measures passed by a large majority by the members’ meeting at the proposal of the Consortium’s Board of Directors to safeguard the denomination, particularly in light of the current difficult economic situation. For Consortium President Stefano Ricagno, “the international context, which is increasingly unstable and aggravated by the duties imposed by the Trump administration, requires us to carefully manage supply. The goal is to harmonize production potential, control volumes and ensure balanced growth”.
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| | | “We must govern the limit”: this is the future of the sector indicated by Angelo Gaja, the “artisan” of Italian wine, in recent days on the “Corriere della Sera” in an interview (in more detail) with deputy editor Luciano Ferraro. For whom, after years of growth that led Italy to the world number one in production, in an “annus horribilis” of declining consumption, healthiness, still high stocks in the cellars during harvest (whose estimates speak of 45 or even 50 million hectoliters), climate effects and U.S. duties, “the golden age of Italian wine seems far away,” so much so that at the Wine Table with Premier Giorgia Meloni and Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, there was even talk of uprooting. An extreme measure, such as distillation, “I wonder if practices consistent with governing the limit are not desirable”, Gaja says, explaining that “an annual production between 35 and 42 million hectoliters would be optimal. Produce less, but better”. How? By lowering “the limit for table wines from 400 to 250 quintals of grapes per hectare. By restoring dignity to these wines” and “to produce table wines from table grapes”, with “the reduction of bureaucracy”, and making sure that public funds “serve to benefit the entire sector and not individuals”. | |
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| | | An American kitchen, a dinner for two, and here appears a bottle of Italian wine, Alta Mora Etna Bianco (Alberto and Diego Cusumano’s estate on the slopes of the Sicilian volcano): nothing strange, except that we are in one of the episodes of “And Just Like That”, in season no. 3 on Sky, a highly-followed sequel to “Sex & The City”, one of the most iconic TV series ever, starring writer and journalist Carrie Bradshaw, aka Sarah Jessica Parker, a beloved style model for women of all generations. | |
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| | Collecting gets glamorous, and the “stars” of world wine showed off on the Croisette, as an impressive collection of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, of different vintages including Echezeaux, Grands Echezeaux, Richebourg, la Tâche and Romanée-Conti, “top lot” of “Grands Vins & Alcools”, Besch Cannes Auction’s auction, in recent days, at the Hotel Martinez on the legendary Boulevard in Cannes, with 1,550 lots from prestigious private wineries. Among them many Italian ones, from Gaja to Bartolo Mascarello, from Tenuta San Guido to Antinori, from Ornellaia to Biondi-Santi, from Castello Banfi to Camigliano, from Luciano Sandrone to Conterno Fantino, from Domenico Clerico to Elio Grasso, from Roberto Voerzio to Vietti, from Ceretto to Bruno Giacosa, from Roagna to Quintarelli, from Romano Dal Forno to Bertani, from Masi to Falesco. | |
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| | “Thanks to the immediate intervention of the firefighting teams, agricultural crops and Lacryma Christi vineyards have been largely safeguarded: only 1% of the 260 hectares of vineyards are affected by the fire”. Words from Nicola Caputo, Campania’s councillor for Agriculture, after the inspection carried out in the areas affected by the flames in the Vesuvius National Park, following the blaze that had also raised fears for some valuable productions such as Lacryma Christi Pdo wine and Piennolo Pdo cherry tomatoes. | |
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