Italian wines and sparkling wines’ export has always been a happy island. The average annual growth rate has been 5.2% over the last twenty years. And it has not stopped even with the pandemic. On the contrary, according to the UIV, it was precisely thanks to the lockdown that the world appreciated even more our sparkling wines, with Prosecco leading the field, thanks also to the deseasonalization of demand, which increasingly sees sparkling wines present not only on special occasions but also in everyday life. Even in the first quarter of 2022 there were concrete increases in their demand across all markets, with the clear exception of Russia and Ukraine, where demand fell heavily.

But of the 7 billion of exports in 2021, almost 5 billion came exclusively from mediumsized companies with a turnover of more than 20 million, while small companies with a turnover of up to 2 million only represented 5% of the value of Italian wine exports. It is therefore appropriate to ask whether the size of the companies themselves is not becoming an increasingly decisive factor on wine export capacity. It has not been a problem for many years, it is therefore an emerging issue that should not be underestimated. One has to ask oneself

What are the reasons why small companies have started to disappear from the international market.

• Mismanagement of their resources?
• Structural limitations?
• Poor organisational skills?
• Strong competition?
• Difficult collaboration with consortia and denominations?

These are all plausible hypotheses: there is certainly a considerable waste of both energy and resources by some small companies, on the flip side they are often opposed by medium-sized and large competitors, who control the denominations and decide the prices.

Moreover, at the moment there is no effective strategy to promote ‘Made in Italy‘ wine in the world, and many small companies are not implementing the necessary improvements to be able to grow and become competitive. Exports represent a fundamental factor for the economic sustenance of the wine sector, and it is therefore important to succeed in increasing both the number of exporting companies of excellence and the number of our denominations present in international markets, expanding also in markets that are considered emerging.

However, it is clear that there are still limitations as far as the wine sector is concerned. Making forecasts to understand where the market will actually be positioned in the near future becomes difficult, given that inflation is sharply increasing, the economic scenario is getting heavier, and the consumption front is anything but easy to interpret.

Edited by the Italian office of Pangea Studio Associato

Valentina
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