Veneto, Italy: 2020 harvest positive but painful notes from the market
Ricardo Lopes
Published 2020년 12월 24일
Collected over 14 million quintals of grapes transformed into more than 11 million hectoliters of wine, of which 80% are denomination. Sales in large-scale distribution are doing well, while exports are also suffering from the pandemic. Veneto remains first in Italy for production and exports.
Encouraging numbers on the pitch and in the cellar
The 2020 harvest, particularly positive for red wines, both in quality and in quantity, as underlined by Luca Furegon of Avepa and Nicola Barasciutti of the Veneto Region - Agri-Food Directorate - produced 14,039,000 quintals of grapes in Veneto, a higher quantity compared to last year (which had been 13.159 million / q) and lower than the abundant harvest of 2018 (16.409 million / q). Of these 14 million quintals, 10 million (to be exact 9.936 million / q) are DOP/DOC and about 3 million are IGT, confirming the very high quality now achieved by the Veneto vineyard.
Export sunk by the pandemic
If the 2020 harvest in Veneto went well, the same cannot be said for wine exports. In practice, the export of Veneto wine, after a positive first quarter of 2020, has slowed down, however confirming Veneto as the first Italian wine exporter (in value: 1,574 million euros, double that of Piedmont and Tuscany combined). Between lock-downs and restrictions of all kinds, the Coronavirus crisis has therefore also hit the wine sector hard, which, however, has found an important sales channel in large-scale distribution.
José Rallo, director of the Institute for Foreign Trade and CEO of Donnafugata, one of the most important Italian wineries, reiterated the importance of online wine sales, which have grown around the world almost exponentially in 2020. Consider that in China wine e-commerce has grown by 30% this year. In 2021 it is estimated that the Asian country will be overtaken by the US where the average value of a bottle of wine is 28 dollars, a figure that needs no comment.
Encouraging numbers on the pitch and in the cellar
The 2020 harvest, particularly positive for red wines, both in quality and in quantity, as underlined by Luca Furegon of Avepa and Nicola Barasciutti of the Veneto Region - Agri-Food Directorate - produced 14,039,000 quintals of grapes in Veneto, a higher quantity compared to last year (which had been 13.159 million / q) and lower than the abundant harvest of 2018 (16.409 million / q). Of these 14 million quintals, 10 million (to be exact 9.936 million / q) are DOP/DOC and about 3 million are IGT, confirming the very high quality now achieved by the Veneto vineyard.
Export sunk by the pandemic
If the 2020 harvest in Veneto went well, the same cannot be said for wine exports. In practice, the export of Veneto wine, after a positive first quarter of 2020, has slowed down, however confirming Veneto as the first Italian wine exporter (in value: 1,574 million euros, double that of Piedmont and Tuscany combined). Between lock-downs and restrictions of all kinds, the Coronavirus crisis has therefore also hit the wine sector hard, which, however, has found an important sales channel in large-scale distribution.
José Rallo, director of the Institute for Foreign Trade and CEO of Donnafugata, one of the most important Italian wineries, reiterated the importance of online wine sales, which have grown around the world almost exponentially in 2020. Consider that in China wine e-commerce has grown by 30% this year. In 2021 it is estimated that the Asian country will be overtaken by the US where the average value of a bottle of wine is 28 dollars, a figure that needs no comment.
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