The first Wine Monitor data on 2013 wine imports for some of the most important wine consumption markets in the world show perhaps unexpected results. After years of uninterrupted growth in the values - and in some cases also in the volumes - of imports, the first minus signs appear. However, Italy is holding up well on the market.
What are the reasons for this retreat? According to Denis Pantini, director of the agri-food area of Nomisma and project leader of Wine Monitor “on closer inspection there is no common cause, but several factors that have had a different impact on the individual markets. Apart from the strong devaluation against the euro that has affected many currencies (such as the Brazilian real or the Japanese yen), the only element that seems to unite almost all the countries considered is the high drop in the quantities of bulk wine imported, also deriving from a lower availability of product which, as it will be recalled, saw in 2012 reach the lowest levels in the last ten years (258 million hectoliters of wine produced worldwide, against 268 the year before and 281 in 2013 )".
As far as China is concerned, after an exponential growth in purchases of foreign wines by Chinese consumers, which went from 1,7 million to 1.170 million euros over the course of twenty years, 2013 shows a decrease compared to the previous year of almost 5%. In terms of volumes, the percentage reduction is more or less similar: 4,4% against 3,77 million hectoliters against 3,94 million, again referring to 2012.
Of those 60 million euros that are missing, half comes from bottled wines and half from cask. But while for the latter type there is also a drop in imported volumes of about 27% (the quantities of bulk wine account for about a quarter of China's total imports), in the case of still bottled wines the quantity has not dropped indeed it grew by 5%. There seems to have been a substitution effect between higher priced products with more 'cheaper' ones.
This trend is witnessed by the drop suffered by France (-12,5%) in the value of exports of wines bottled in China, which benefited the other competitors, first of all Italy which, on the contrary, increased its exports by more than 11%. The same goes for sparkling wines. Also in this case France left a similar -12,5% in the field against an exponential growth of our products, whose exports in value almost doubled (+86%).
In the United States, imports decreased in terms of volumes (-6% measured in euros), but the decline only concerned bulk, so much so that both on the side of bottled stills and sparkling-sparkling wines there was growth (respectively by 3% and 9%) which was also reflected in the values (+3% and +2%). The overall loss was due to the fact that casks account for almost a third of the total volumes of imported wine.
Unlike the average, Italian wines have 'outperformed' the market: imports from Italy have in fact grown in value by 5,5%, exceeding 9% in the case of sparkling wines.
In Brazil, the decline affected all types: from bottled stills (-6% in value compared to 2012), to sparkling/sparkling wines (-11%) and bulk (-34%). In the case of bottled wines, among the main exporters only France achieved a +3,5% growth, while Italy recorded a loss of 2,7%.
In the case of Japan, against a decrease in the values of total wine imports (-4%) there was on the contrary a growth in volumes (+2%). In particular, imports in value of bottled still wines and sparkling wines decreased by 3% and 9% respectively. France mainly paid the price in both segments, while Italy held steady in bottled wines (+1%) but lagged behind in sparkling wines (-4%).
In Canada there was a slight decrease of 1% both in the values and in the total volumes of wine imports; in this scenario, Italy has managed to increase its export flows both in terms of still bottled wines and sparkling wines. In particular, compared to the latter type, there was an increase of 3% in value and 9% in quantity.
Finally Russia, the only market among those considered where the import of wine has achieved considerable growth: +12% in value, compared to +2% in volumes. Also in this market our wines have conquered further positions, following an increase in the flows of wine exported by more than 20%, both in terms of values and quantities. In the case of sparkling wines, imports from Italy increased by 49% in economic terms, against a 43% growth in volumes, thus consolidating the leadership held by our country in this segment, with a share today equal to 63 % of sparkling wine imports in Russia, against 27% in France.
