Climate change defines a new geography of red wines
Camerano (Ancona) - Far from a simple vineyard revolution, climate tropicalization is contributing to changing tastes and red wine drinking habits, particularly in Italy and in Europe. To say so is the Nomisma-Wine Monitor analysis on evolution scenarios of traditional Italian wine products at the "Rosso come il vino" convention organized in Camerano (Ancona) by IMT (Istituto marchigiano di tutela vini) to celebrate the 50th year of the DOC certificate awarded to Conero. While market demand is exploding in the Far East, in Canada and the USA, it is decreasing in Europe and particularly in Italy. Here, the consumption of white wine (40.6%) has overtaken that of red, albeit by a hair's breadth (40.2%), for the first time ever last year. Contributing to this was the gradual drop in domestic demand and respective decrease in sales (-14%) over the past five-year period. The international situation is better as a result of the average price increase over the past ten years (+50%), but according to the analysis presented by Collisioni Marche wine makers need to shift their sights more to the East, where demand is soaring.
"We are observing a fast migration of the demand for red wine and some of our traditional markets are slumping", said IMT Director, Alberto Mazzoni "The global volume of imported still reds has dropped by 7% in Germany, by 9% in Switzerland and by 10% in Great Britain over the past five years. At the same time, those in Japan (+26%), China (+25%) and South Korea (+16%) are on the rise, like in Canada (+16%) and the USA (+11%). Also in light of this, we have decided to intensify our actions on emerging third countries, devoting approximately 40% of the Ocm Promozione funds to China, Japan, Russia and India, with an eye to the United States (34.5%) and Canada (19.3%)". Italy holds the world leadership of red wine production, but is lagging behind France for exports, with sales of bottles totally 2.3 billion Euro abroad, compared to the 3.7 billion of France. The gap has remained virtually unchanged for the past years despite a narrowing of the average price scissors in favor of Italy: if in 2011 one liter of French red was worth in average 35.6% more than one liter of red Italian wine, today the difference is down to 20.7%.