The much heralded setback in Italia’s wine exports has occurred. And it could not have been otherwise with the main foreign outlet market, the United States, burdened by tariffs and an unfavourable euro-dollar exchange rate. Now comes the certification of Istat data. In 2025, Italian wine exports lost 3.7%, stopping at 7.78 billion euro, thus falling below the 8 billion mark recorded last year.
US leads the declines, Europe holds
The turnover of Made in Italy wine abroad lost a total of 300 million, 178 of which in the United States. According to ISTAT data processed by the Italian Wine Union Observatory, while the drop in value was 3.7% volume sales were less marked (-1.9%) this is probably a sign of what many have been rumouring in recent months: that Italian producers, in an attempt to limit the damage in the US, have partly absorbed the tariffs, reducing their profit margins.
The negative performance in the US (-9.2% to 1.76 billion) dragged down non-EU markets, which lost 6.4% overall. Outside the EU, it was also bad in other key outlets beyond the US. Minus signs also in the UK (-3.9%), Canada (-5.9%), Switzerland (-4.2%) and Russia (-16%). The only exception was Brazil (+3.8%) which bodes well for the EU-Mercosur agreement.
Sparkling wines and top regions are also falling
The European markets fared much better, where an increase of 0.5% was recorded. Holding positions were held by the key market of Germany (+0.6%, to EUR 1.1 billion), while both France (+3.6%) and the Netherlands (+5.6%) rose. Among the regions, negative signs for the three leaders: Veneto at -1.2% (EUR 2.9 billion), Tuscany (-2%) and Piedmont (-2.2%).
On the typology front, the figure for sparkling wines is worrying, which after years of uninterrupted growth left 2.5% on the ground (at EUR 2.3 billion), although they did better than still wines, which lost 4.3% to EUR 5 billion.
Dining and Cooking