One would want to invoke Aristophanes – author of comedies that balanced the Greek tragedies – who declared: “Bring me a little wine so that I can wet my mind and say intellectual things”, because the world of winemakers in Italy and in France he appears in the throes of a negative intoxication and wanders in the fog of increasingly worrying figures.
They return today from ProWeinthe exhibition that once filled the somewhat dull copy-commissions in Düsseldorf. The Germans wanted rock-bottom prices, but they bought a lot. The fortune of Prosecco it started right there. Overall the Prosecco Doc (the one that costs least) sells over half a million bottles abroad and the Germany he is the third customer.
Italian wine between duties and the Mercosur threat
However, it was a disastrous year 2026 for Italian wine: there are duties Donald Trumpbut it is not that theEU you treat us better. Lamberto Frescobaldipresident ofItalian Wine Unioncheered the deal Mercosur (winemakers are the only satisfied farmers) because those countries are potentially an expansion market. We sell wine there for 2.8 million (a pittance), but we can grow.
But, just Ursula von der Leyen ratified the treaty – passing over the Strasbourg Parliament and ad Emanuel Macron (who has to deal with the French vignerons: they team up with the other farmers and are not accommodating people) – the Argentine president Javier Milei he has reached an agreement with the Americans and imports all the fake Made in Italy products produced in the USA, including wine. Not to mention that agriculture there has made 37 percent and is ready to invade us at zero duty.
This is not a good thing at all for a country like ours that makes wine its own first export entry agri-food sector, which has 7 thousand companies with its own label and “feeds” over a million people with its grapes. Our foreign invoice are 8.2 billion euros; indeed, better, they were, because all the economic barometers indicate a storm is coming. Just take the latest worrying data from overseas: in Americawhich is our best foreign customer, in 2025 we made a minus of 13.2 percent, stopping at 1.8 billion in collections.
The profound crisis of Bordeaux and Champagne
But if Rome certainly cries Paris he doesn’t laugh: the French wine crisis is mind-boggling. Thirty thousand hectares eradicated, lo Champagne has sold more bottles, but is missing 4 percent of turnover, a Bordeaux they are desperate; the two leading foreign markets collapsed: in China they went from 72 to 22 million cases (the Chinese no longer have money to spend) and one hundred Chateaux that Beijing’s billionaires had bought themselves are for sale; on the American market they lost 18 percent.
Thinking aboutItaly efforts should be redoubled Alexander Dumasamong other things he was someone who ate very well and drank better, and to write “40 years later”. A lot has passed since the criminal scandal of methanol. Exactly on March 17, 1986 it was discovered that the Piedmontese brothers Ciravegna they sold wine adulterated with methyl alcohol marketed by Vincenzo Odore and by six other wholesalers among Piedmont And Puglia passing through Ravenna.
The dramatic toll was 23 dead and over 150 poisoned people who never saw a single euro of compensation. Italian wine collapsed, yet within five years the Sassicaia Of Mario Incisa della Rocchettafavored by Piero Antinoriconceived and vinified by Giacomo Tachisdefeated all in a competition Bordeaux. I was born Super Tuscan and it was a new Renaissance in the cellar with the young Barolistas who set out to conquer theAmerica led by a very skilled man Angelo Gaja.
New consumption styles and the unknown of young people
But what’s different today? The quality of our wines is very high, but forty years later our three musketeers plus one (Barolo, Brunello, Amarone And Chianti Classico) are worse off than D’Artagnan and his companions. Why? And above all, is it possible to think of a rebound like that of post-methanol? Are the conditions there?
Considering that wine today has two very powerful enemies:European Union with theWHO and the empire of the so-called drinkers. Who have as allies the new lifestyle and consumption styles which have drastically reduced internal demand and increased a 74 million hectoliters the stocks in the cellar, as well as reducing the vineyard area by at least 10 thousand hectares.
For now there are only palliatives. Europe which on the one hand wants to ban the consumption of wine because it is in line with the WHO – the one financed by the Epstein-employee Bill Gates – he believes that it is carcinogenic (the issue concerns only the Mediterranean and in Brussels therefore it counts for nothing) on the other hand he invents a wine package approved by Parliament which translates into a little money for promotions, support forwine tourisma regulation of wine not winethe dealcoholized one so to speak, and contributed to the eradication. The cheers, including those from our agricultural minister Francesco Lollobrigida which in Italy is trying to provide other support, are the sanction of the crisis.
The future of the sector: wine tourism and new languages
But the real issue is that wine has perhaps gone out of fashion. We drink less and less of it: no one wants high alcohol content anymore, at business lunches the bottle appears more for appearance than for substance. This is certified by the latest report on the state of European agriculture edited by Brussels and spread by WineNewsthe Italian reference website on wine, where it is written: «Consumption in EU it will decline by 0.9 percent per year until 2035, reaching approximately 19.3 liters per capita (down from 21.2 liters on average in 2021-2025). Domestic consumption is worth 66 percent, while exports represent 20 percent. Production could decrease by 0.5 percent per year between now and 2035: by that date production will have fallen to 138 million hectoliters.”
What to do? Sandro Boscainimister Amaroneproceeded: «We in Masi we created the line Fresh from Masiwines around 11 degrees ready to drink that enhance the territory. As for theAmarone I believe it will always have an elite market. There is no point in being afraid: you have to invest and undertake; as for dealcohol, I think the best is water.”
Francesca Morettiwho is in charge of Terra Morettithe most glamorous group in Italian wine, relaunches with new styles. «With ours Franciacorta Bellavista Assemblage we have created a new consumer environment: we try to enhance the drinkability, pleasantness and indispensable sociability of sparkling wines; and with still wines we aim to tell the stories of the territories.”
Because one of the possible new paths of development is thewine tourism. A study of Future market insights (IMF) estimates that, globally, wine tourism turnover will go from 108.3 billion dollars in 2025 to 358.6 billion dollars by 2035. Lamberto Frescobaldi (Uiv) he believes that a boost comes from alcohol-free wines and has fought for «production to remain within the agricultural perimeter: it is certainly not the solution for small wineries, but it can be a way to bring young people back to wine consumption».
Young people are the topic of Riccardo Cotarellathe VIP winemaker and world president of winemakers, who al Vinitaly of Verona (12 -15 April) – but above all at Assoenologists Congress (Conegliano 28-30 May) – will launch its project to recover consumers. He claims Cotarella: «If we don’t go back to talking to young people, wine risks becoming a product for the nostalgic. It is not a generational alarm, it is a technical, cultural and social observation. Too often I hear that young people drink less wine. I believe that the right question is another: is the wine speaking their language? Or does he still demand to be listened to without questioning himself? If we continue to ignore them, it won’t be them who lose the wine: it will be us who lose them. The wine is not old. It is not in the vineyards, it is not in the cellars, it is not in research. But it can become so in the way it is told. The future of wine is not in the numbers, it is in the faces. If those faces are not young, ours will only be a glorious past. A past that we can admire, but which will not save us.”
