Italy's wine industry lost its export cushion after foreign sales fell 6% in early 2026

Italy’s wine industry is under pressure from two fronts at once: people at home are drinking wine less often, and exports are no longer offsetting that decline as strongly as they did for years. An analysis by Denis Pantini, head of Nomisma Wine Monitor, argues that the downturn is more complex than the common view that younger adults simply stopped drinking wine.

Pantini presented the findings on Oct. 10 at an event organized by Cantina Rauscedo to mark its 75th anniversary. The data show that in Italy the share of habitual wine consumers fell to 39% in 2025 from 57% in 2006. Over the same period, the share of 18- to 24-year-olds among all Italian wine drinkers stayed at 6%, suggesting that the sharper change has been in drinking frequency, especially among older consumers who once drank wine regularly with meals.

That shift has become a central issue for producers and distributors because it changes demand by occasion, style, and price tier rather than just by age group. It also suggests that beverage companies may need to rethink portfolio choices, market segmentation, and export diversification instead of treating the slowdown as only a generational problem.

According to the analysis, Italy’s domestic wine market has been shrinking for years even as production remained relatively stable. Pantini said Italian wine output fell by about 12% over the last two decades, while domestic consumption dropped by 25%. The gap was largely filled by exports. Between 2005 and 2025, Italian wine exports rose 33% by volume, and the share of production shipped abroad climbed to 48% from 31%, meaning the country now exports nearly one bottle out of every two it produces.

That model is showing strain in 2026. In the first half of the year, Italian wine exports fell 6% by value and 3.9% by volume, according to Pantini’s figures. Bottled still and semi-sparkling wines posted a steeper decline, down 8.9% in value and 5.9% in volume. Sparkling wines held up better, with value up 0.4% and volume down just 0.7%.

The weakness is not limited to Italy. Pantini said the slowdown is affecting many major exporting countries, with Spain down 7.8% in export value in the first half, Chile down 15.3%, and New Zealand down 11.9%. France posted a smaller decline of 2.2%, while Australia was down 1.5%. Even so, the Italian industry is facing a difficult year because its biggest foreign markets are under pressure at the same time that domestic demand is changing.

The United States remains the largest market for Italian wine by value, but it has become a major source of concern. Pantini said U.S. wine consumption dropped to a little more than 32 million hectoliters from about 35 million over the last three years. He also pointed to trade tensions and tariffs introduced by the Trump administration as an added burden on the market. In the first seven months of 2026, the value of U.S. imports of Italian wine fell 23.2%. The decline was 6.6% in the United Kingdom, 5.1% in Germany, and 11.8% in Canada.

Among the 12 main global markets reviewed in the analysis, only Japan, France, and Brazil showed growth in imports of Italian wine in the first seven months of 2026. Japan rose 1.2%, France 1.5%, and Brazil 7.5%. Altogether, those 12 markets reduced their purchases from Italy by 11.8% in value, compared with a 10.8% drop in their total wine imports, indicating that Italy is feeling the slowdown broadly across its key destinations.

On the domestic side, the analysis says the reduction in drinking frequency is hitting red wines the hardest. Red wine remains the category most associated with regular meal-time consumption. Nomisma’s consumer survey found that 41% of people who drink still red wine say they consume it daily or two to three times a week. The share falls to 30% for still white wine, 16% for sparkling wine, and 11% for rosé. As habitual drinking declines, reds lose the most ground.

From 2015 to 2025, the share of still red wines in Italian consumption fell to 36.9% from 40.6%, while sparkling wines rose to 15.1% from 10.5%, according to the analysis. Pantini also linked changing preferences partly to climate conditions, saying longer and hotter summers may be making heavier, higher-alcohol reds less immediate choices for many consumers.

Sales data from modern retail channels point in the same direction. In the first eight months of 2026, still and lightly sparkling wines fell 3.2% in volume and 2.1% in value. Reds declined 4.4% in volume and 3.6% in value. Whites were more resilient, down 1.9% in volume and 0.5% in value. Sparkling wines continued to grow, rising 2.7% in volume and 2.2% in value. The strongest performance came from dry Charmat sparkling wines, including Prosecco, and from traditional-method sparkling wines, which rose 13.9% in volume and 9.4% in value even though they account for less than 10% of total category sales.

Pantini said the market is also polarizing by price. Entry-level wines are holding because regular buyers continue to focus on affordability. Premium wines are also growing because some consumers drink less often but choose better bottles when they do. Mid-range products are under more pressure. For beverage companies, that split may affect packaging, branding, and shelf strategy across wine and adjacent categories competing for the same drinking occasions.

The analysis also highlighted the rise of low- and no-alcohol segments. Between 2021 and 2025, global consumption of alcohol-free sparkling wine increased to about 87.3 million bottles from 53.6 million, while still non-alcoholic wine rose to about 65.9 million bottles from 43.7 million. The category remains small compared with the total wine market, but Pantini said it reflects growing attention to health, calories, sugar, and alcohol content, especially in markets such as the United States and Germany.

Consumer surveys cited in the analysis show that price has become more important because of weaker household purchasing power, but it is not the only factor guiding purchases. Sustainability remains relevant for 73% of Italian consumers surveyed, 55% of British consumers, 42% of German consumers, and 59% of consumers in the Nordic countries covered by the research. In Italy, 70% of respondents said quality and origin labels such as DOP and IGP matter in their buying decisions.

Pantini also pointed to new export opportunities outside the industry’s traditional targets. Looking at markets that buy at least 10 million euros of Italian wine a year, Nomisma found that from 2015 to 2025 exports to Romania rose 507%, Turkey 325%, Vietnam 264%, Poland 249%, Azerbaijan 240%, the Czech Republic 235%, and Bulgaria 209%. South Korea, Mexico, Australia, and Croatia also posted growth above the overall export average. Those markets are still smaller than the main destinations, but the figures suggest that future growth may depend more on targeted expansion into emerging markets than on relying mainly on the United States and Western Europe.

For Italian wineries, that could mean a broader shift in strategy. The data suggest that weaker routine consumption at home, pressure on major export markets, stronger demand for sparkling wines, and the gradual growth of low- and no-alcohol products are reshaping where and how wine is sold. That may push producers, retailers, and importers to adjust product mix, pricing, and market exposure as the industry moves through a slower and more fragmented phase.