In 2015 the Italian wine industry exported for 7.3 billion Euros. The category ‘grape wines’ contributed for 5.4 billion Euros. According to Fortis-Corradini Index, developed on behalf of the Edison Foundation that calculates the competitive excellence in the international trade based on the trade balance, Italy on the latest available data (2015) positioned itself in second place in the world for trade balance concerning bottled grape Wines and Sparkling Wines, and was the very first one as for vinegars, liqueurs, Vermouths, and bitters.
The top three exporter Countries are the United States with 994 million Euros, Germany with 717 million Euros, and the United Kingdom with 379 million Euros. These data concern ‘Table Wines’ category. The situation changes slightly for Sparkling wines, where in the first place we find the United Kingdom with 368 million Euros, the USA with 286 million Euros, and Germany with 245 million Euros. A curiosity: in 2015 China accounted still only 90 million Euros as for export.
Marco Fortis, director of the Edison Foundation and professor at the Catholic University of Milano, adds: ‘Few sectors contribute to an equally important extent to the Italian trade balance as wine, sparkling wines, liqueurs, bitters and vinegars do. It is not just a quantitative contribution, which in terms of surplus with foreign Countries is worth over 5 billion Euros. The wine industry chain is a flagship of Made in Italy, which every year proves to be able to make an enormous progress in terms of quality and innovation’.
Veneto was confirmed as the main Italian exporting region as for wines and alcoholic drinks. The value of this export is more than 2 billion Euros. Piedmont with 1.4 billion Euros, with a slight decrease compared to 2014 (-0.8%), Lombardy with 1 billion Euros and Tuscany with 930 million Euros, both growing, follow. In no less than six regions (Veneto, Piedmont, Tuscany, Trentino Alto Adige, Sicily and Valle d'Aosta) Wine and alcoholic drinks are in the list of the top 10 exported products. About 2.3 billion Euros come from three Italian provinces only, whose values concerning exports are respectively worth over 500 million Euros: Verona, Cuneo and Treviso.
