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Issue 733 - May 12th - 16th 2025 - Expressly created for 3693 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Scenario, History, Social, Sustainable, Site, Style, System, Strategy, Succession, Experimentation, Sign, Challenge, Dream: these are the “S-factors”, like Sicily, on which to build the future of a region that is “one of the most important assets of Italian wine”, grappling, as they all are, with the great changes of these times. Crucial “to retain young people, enhance identity sites beyond Etna, create contemporary wines and narratives, revive the presence of social wineries and connect them with historic Sicilian families”. These are some of the reflections of Master of Wine Andrea Lonardi, among the messages of “Sicilia En Primeur” 2025 by Assovini. | |
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| | As widely expected, after January’s sprint start, the run of Italian wine exports in February 2025 brakes sharply, although they remain in positive territory at least in value, but not in volume. Istat data updated today and analyzed by WineNews, speak of €1.19 billion worldwide, up +3.6% on the first 2 months of 2024 (an increase halved compared to January’s +7.5%, ed.), while volumes drop, to 316,809,270 liters (-1.7%). Something better than average do sparkling wines, at 322 million (+4.5%) for 74.6 million liters (+3.3%), but again with a slowing growth trend. Looking at individual markets, the U.S. is confirmed as a driver, with a figure evidently still affected by the desire to anticipate duties, which then arrived in April, with +20.5% (in line with January’s +19.3%), for 335.7 million euros, accompanied by an increase in quantity of +8.2%, to 57.8 million liters. Germany remains up, but slows down from the beginning of the year, at €179 million (+2.4%), against, however, an almost identical decline in volume (-2.24%, to 77.1 million liters), while the United Kingdom veers slightly downward, making -1.4% in value, to €107.2 million, and -1.2% in volume, to 34.1 million liters (-1.2%). Slowing, but remaining strong, is also growth in Canada, which does +14.6% in value, to 62.3 million euros, and Switzerland also remains in the positive, with 59.7 million euros (+1.5%). Remaining in Europe, it basically zeroes out the growth of Italian wine imports from France, at 40.8 million euros (+0.9%), while Belgium grows +2.2% (which, however, was at +13.1% in January on January), at 35.9 million euros. The East is bad: after a growing start Japan brakes sharply, stopping at 26.7 million euros (-6.9%), while China's deep red continues, at 9.3 million euros (-27%). And Russia’s drop also continues, at -54.7% in value, to the tune of 20 million euros, with a sharp slowdown in volume as well, at -68%, to 5.1 million liters. | |
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| | Still dropping, but still remaining high, well above the quantity of an average vintage, Italian wine stocks, which, as of April 30, 2025, were 49.7 million hectoliters (-0.5% over the same date 2024) and 5.9% lower than March 31, 2025. A figure to which must be added the 3.5 million hectoliters of must (-14.1%) and 116,749 hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation (+82.9%). This is the picture taken, in the updated report “Cantina Italia” by Icqrf, published on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture. The trends are the “historical” ones: 58.5% of the wine is, in fact, held in the northern regions, mainly in the Veneto; 55.2 % of the total wine held is in PDO, 25.9 % in Igp, while the rest is made up of varietal wines (1.4 %) and generics (17.5 %) with the top 20 between PDO and Igp (out of 526) making 57.6 % of the stocks. | |
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| | | Just as tourism lives more and more on services and reservations via web and social, so does wine tourism. Which has its champions of made in Italy. With the most “popular” Italian wineries being, in order, Ca’ del Bosco, the iconic Franciacorta winery, Donnafugata, among the pearls of wine Sicily, Tedeschi, one of the historical griffes of Valpolicella, Marchesi Antinori, one of the most important names of Italian wine in the world, and again two jewels of Trentino such as Tenuta San Leonardo and Ferrari Trento, passing through one of the most beautiful realities of Chianti Classico, Lamole di Lamole (of the Herita Marzotto Wine Estates group, ed.), and again the cradle of Franciacorta, Guido Berlucchi, led by the Ziliani family, with the “Top 10” closed by one of the most prestigious wineries in Bolgheri, Ornellaia, of the Frescobaldi Group, and by Argiano, the gem of the Montalcino territory of Brazilian entrepreneur Andrè Esteves, led by ad Bernardino Sani (which, in 2023, saw its Brunello di Montalcino 2018 ranked no. 1 in the ranking of the U.S. magazine “Wine Spectator”, ed.). This is according to the ranking compiled by the portal Imco, analyzing a “list of the best wineries in Italy, based on the number of posts on Instagram and TikTok, the average rating of reviews on Google and the minimum cost for a tasting”. | |
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| | | Florence like Paris, London and Venice, not only for beauty and the richness of its cultural heritage, but also thanks to the “urban vineyard” at Piazzale Michelangelo: it turns one year old “Vigna Michelangelo” overlooking the “cradle of the Renaissance”, a true collection of Tuscany’s historic vines guarded by the Bolgheri-based Donne Fittipaldi winery, 700 rootstocks including Sangiovese, Pugnitello, Foglia Tonda and Canaiolo (with dedications: there are also those of WineNews founders Alessandro Regoli and Irene Chiari), and now part of the Urban Vineyards Association. | |
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| | Projects to be submitted through the Sian portal by 12 noon on July 14, 2025, maximum contribution that can be requested no more than 4 million euros, with bonuses for projects aimed at new third countries or new third country markets, or emerging countries, and again for contributions requested under the maximum threshold of 50% co-financing: these are some of the aspects envisaged by the new notice on the CMO Wine measure - Promotion in Third Country Markets, for the 2025/2026 year, published on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture, which, as always, makes available to the wine sector resources totaling 98 million euros, of which more than 22.5 million are allocated to the national call (while the remaining sums will be allocated through regional and multi-regional calls for proposals that will be published in the coming days by the Regions, ed.). | |
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| | In the record of Italian agrifood exports in 2024, at more than 69 billion euros (+8% over 2023), that of the Italian agrifood districts is included, wine in the lead by value, at 6.7 billion euros (out of 8 total Italian wine thus coming from the districts, ed.), although the chain that grows the most is that of oil (+40.9%, to 1.9 billion euros). This emerges from the Monitor of Italian agrifood districts as of December 31, 2024, edited by Intesa Sanpaolo’s Research Department. With sweets and wine, Langhe, Roero and Monferrato are the locomotive (in more detail). | |
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