How will sales keep on going after Covid 19 compairing with other Italian Regions?

Last week was an important digital event for the PIemontese WineScene, where present & future were annotated. It was an opportunity to examine the 2020 economic data and discuss strategies to support the sector, with regard to the preservation and development of markets in the post-pandemic period. The proceedings began with the greeting by Mauro Gola, president of Confindustria Cuneo and the Chamber of Commerce, and continued with the introduction of Paolo Sartirano, president of the wines, spirits and liqueurs section of Confindustria Cuneo, who recalled the objectives and functions of the Confindustria Economic Observatory launched in 2018.

The comparison was stimulated by Ernesto Abbona, president of the Italian Wine Union, who developed a series of critical reflections on the reality of Piedmontese wine, in a, not always pleasant, comparison with the reality of Veneto. Abbona points to the greater fragmentation of Piedmontese appellations (59) compared to those in Veneto (43) and, above all, to the different development trends in the wine sectors, with Piedmont struggling to keep up with the number of hectares planted with vines, while Veneto, thanks to the exploitation of the Prosecco phenomenon, has been riding the wave of progress en masse. This is a provocation that does not take into account the objectively different situations between the two realities from an ecological, historical, socio-economic and strategic point of view.

Elena Angaramo, head of the study centre Confindustria Cuneo, illustrated the economic data of wines belonging to four consortia (Barolo and Barbaresco, Roero, Barbera d'Asti and Gavi). Even in 2020, there was a positive trend in bottling and therefore in stocks, despite the closures and market slowdowns due to the pandemic. In recent weeks we had already written about these economic results for Alba wine and the data published on this occasion confirms it. There are differences from wine to wine, with some appellations doing better than others, but in this case the reasons are many and not only related to the pandemic: business dynamics, variations in the fertility of a vintage, greater or lesser maturity of a single vintage, and so on.

But the health of the Piedmontese wine sector, as emphasised by the representatives of the consortia and associations (Matteo Ascheri for the consortium of Barolo and Barbaresco, Francesco Monchiero for Roero, Filippo Mobrici for Barbera d'Asti, Roberto Ghio for Gavi and Davide Viglino for Vignaioli piemontesi), cannot be measured by quantity alone. Due attention must also be paid to the value of the grapes, the bulk wines and the bottles. A phenomenon that should be kept in mind is the tendency of some wines to focus a significant part of their production on "fall-back" appellations, which have a lower unit value. The same grape prices of the 2020 harvest, with critical declines compared to 2019, are a sign of an attitude that goes beyond Covid-19 and wants the wine industry to pay for the moments of uncertainty or dismantling of the sector. It seems contradictory, to say the least, to keep talking about quality and prestige winemaking when it is precisely winemaking that pays first when times are tough.

In this context, it is worth recalling the reasoning of Davide Viglino, director of Vignaioli piemontesi, on the occasion of the 2020 harvest, when he triggered the synergy of the cooperative wineries to remove from the market batches of grapes that risked remaining unsold and, above all, further penalised in price.

The roundtable ended with the intervention of regional agriculture councillor Marco Protopapa, who confirmed the Region's commitment to accompanying the sector on its path to meet the challenges of the pandemic and, more generally, the need to conquer new markets. The request made by many speakers for more investment in people who have professional training for the market points to a need that can no longer be postponed.