Italian wine exports are going through a rough patch, but not all categories are suffering equally.
Still wines are bearing the brunt of the downturn, while sparkling wines are proving noticeably more resilient — at least in value terms — compared to the same period last year.
Overall, Italian wine exports totaled 3.6 billion euros in the first half of 2026, down 6.16% from the first half of 2025, with volumes falling 4% to 989.6 million liters. Sparkling wine tells a different story: exports reached roughly 1 billion euros, essentially flat versus a year earlier and actually up 0.4%. Volumes dipped only slightly, to 252.2 million liters, a 0.7% decrease.
Looking at individual markets, the United States — still the top destination by value for Italian wine overall — bought 263 million euros worth of Italian sparkling wine, down 6.6%. That's a far gentler decline than the 14.1% drop the U.S. market posted for Italian wine as a whole. Volumes to the U.S. slipped 2.4%, to 60 million liters. The UK, the second-largest sparkling wine market by value, saw a steeper fall of 10.8%, to 151.5 million euros, while Germany bucked the trend entirely, growing 2.7% to 64.4 million euros.
Much of this performance is driven by Prosecco DOC, which continues to anchor Italy's sparkling wine exports. In the first half of 2026, Prosecco DOC generated 825.4 million euros — about 82% of all sparkling wine exports — down just 1.3% from a year earlier, with volumes nearly unchanged at 194.6 million liters (-0.3%). The U.S. remains Prosecco DOC's top market, importing 236.9 million euros worth, a 7.2% decline.
Even with these headwinds, sparkling wine is clearly outperforming still wine abroad, reinforcing a pattern that's been building for a while: consumers are gravitating toward lighter, lower-alcohol options, which also happen to work well as cocktail bases.
Source: WineNews
0 comments