Italy’s wine producers continue to struggle in export markets, with sales down again in the first four months of the year.
Citing data from government agency ISTAT, trade association Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) said sales fell 6.8% year on year to €2.34bn ($2.66bn) up to the end of April. Volumes slid 3.7% to 641 million litres.
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“These results confirm the difficulties of the wine market and its trade, which is contracting across all producing countries,” UIV president Lamberto Frescobaldi said. “An increased presence in emerging and export markets, along with reduced production, are the two directions that Italian wine must pursue.”
The latest data underlines how the start of 2026 has offered Italy’s wine exporters little respite after a year of declining sales. In 2025, export sales fell 3.7% to €7.78bn on the back of a 1.9% decrease in volumes, hit in the main by US tariffs.
According to the UIV’s latest analysis of the export data, sales to the US did rise in April, growing 1.6%, although sales over the first four months as a whole were down more than 15%.
Sales to the next two largest markets for Italian wine – Germany and the UK – both fell more than 6%.
Rounding out the top five markets, sales to Canada “remained stable”, UIV said, but sales to Switzerland declined more than 12%.
The association did point to some bright spots, with sales to Brazil up 17.8% and China 9.7%.
Frescobaldi added: “The current situation requires us to recognise that we are going through a phase in which it is not only necessary to further promote our wine but also to recognise that large quantities released onto the market are not helping to enhance its value. We must strive for a balance between supply and demand that will sustain the value of Italian wine, protecting businesses’ incomes and the competitiveness of the sector.”
In June, UIV, Italy’s main trade body for wine producers, approved a new package of measures to lower production.
It said the “most urgent” proposals covered the temporary suspension of new planting permits and a reduction in production yields, including for PDO and PGI wines. The package of measures also included making updates to production regulations.
In 2025, production volumes remained “essentially stable” at around 44.4 million hectolitres (mhl), yet cellar inventories rose 6% to 61 million hectolitres, reaching 68 million including musts, the UIV said.
According to data published in May by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), Italy was the world’s largest wine-producing nation in 2025.
The data also showed Italy had the world’s fourth-largest vineyard surface area, covering 726,000 hectares.
However, the report said domestic consumption dropped 9.4% last year to 20.2 mhl.
