VERONA – Italian sparkling wine production closes with growth again in 2022, approaching 1 billion bottles (978 million). This is reported by the Uiv-Vinitaly Observatory, which has processed the bottling data collected from certification bodies. The figure marks a slight increase (+4%) compared to a record-breaking 2021 (+25%), with common and varietal wines (+10%) outperforming sparkling DOC-IGP wines (+3%, 807 million bottles). At the regional level, 85% of Italian DOP-IGP sparkling wines come from Veneto (683 million bottles), followed by Piedmont (9% and 72 million), Lombardy (3% and 24 million), Trentino (2% and 16 million), and Emilia-Romagna (1% and 7.4 million).
DOMESTIC MARKET
The 2022 sales report in Italy closes at +1% (284 million bottles consumed), with -3% in retail and +5% in the restaurant-bar sector. A performance not to be underestimated, although the real winners in the supermarket are non-Prosecco Charmat wines, with strong overall growth (+13%), but especially in discount stores (+22% annually). Domestic sparkling wine consumption has reached full maturity: in 2022, the share of total wine consumption was 13.5% (it was 9% in 2015), with Prosecco as the usual top seller, holding 44% of the volume share.
“In Italy,” said the general secretary of the Italian Wine Union (UIV), Paolo Castelletti, “a new way of consuming sparkling wine is becoming more established. Historically, consumption in our country has been concentrated during the Christmas season, with December alone accounting for 40% of the total until 2015. In recent years, however, there has been a gradual expansion of consumption to other times of the year: in summer, where it reached nearly 30%, but also in the post-Christmas to spring period, when consumption exceeded 30%.”
EXPORT
Exports are performing better, confirming the driving role of Italian sparkling wines in favor of the entire industry. In 2022, Italy exported 5.2 million hectoliters of sparkling wine, an increase of 6% compared to 2021, of which 3.7 million were Prosecco (+6%) and 461,000 were Asti (+9%). A strong increase in exported values, exceeding 19% for the total category, for a total value of 2.2 billion euros. Prosecco remains the engine of exports (+22% in value, 1.6 billion euros), but Asti Spumante is also growing well, soaring by +16% and 168 million euros in sales.
According to Maurizio Danese, CEO of Veronafiere: “Compared to 2010, the value of Italian sparkling wine exports has grown by almost 400%, with the rise of Prosecco representing a case study for other sectors of Made in Italy. In 2022, Italian sparkling wines reached 168 destinations: an increasingly global dimension that is reflected in the international representation at Vinitaly, with a record number of top buyers hosted this year and an event strongly oriented towards business.”
Today, as observed by the Uiv-Vinitaly Observatory, sparkling wine accounts for 24% of the total export volume, a share that was only 14% in 2015 and just 7% in 2010. Today, sparkling wines are the top exported product in key markets such as the UK (44% share compared to 9% in 2010), France (49% compared to 12%), Russia (44%), Belgium (39% compared to 17% 12 years earlier), and Austria (33%). In the USA, the top market in terms of value, sparkling wines hold a market share of 33%, trailing only behind white wines (36%) but ahead of red wines (24%). Just seven years earlier, sparkling wines were at 17% compared to 45% for white wines and 30% for red wines.
