Italy stops worshipping Bacchus as nation drinks less wine than Germany

IT MAY be the home of chianti and prosecco, but Italy’s wine consumption has dropped to an all-time low and the nation is drinking less than beer-loving Germany for the first time.

The United States topped the list of the biggest wine-drinking nations last year, followed by France, Germany and Italy, according to a study from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV).

Germans drank 20.5 million hectolitres of wine in 2015, compared to 30.1 million in the US and 27.2 million in France.

Italy fell just behind Germany, the home of Oktoberfest, with 20.4 million hectolitres consumed – the equivalent of about 13.6 billion glasses and its lowest level since Italy was unified in 1861, according to the Coldiretti farmers’ trade union.

Britain, meanwhile, jumped 2.4 per cent over the year, drinking 12.9 million hectolitres to take sixth place after China. Like most Europeans, Italians have been gradually drinking less in recent decades, with consumption tumbling by 19 per cent since the start of the recession that hit Italy in 2008.

Italian families have cut back on wine spending, meaning that average consumption last year was under 37 litres per person, according to Coldiretti, with only 21 per cent of Italians drinking wine every day. Nearly half of Italians did not drink wine at all last year. The figures still put Italy way ahead of Germany and the UK in terms of wine consumption per capita – with only France ahead on 42 litres per person.

Despite the overall fall, Italy remains fiercely proud of its wine, with Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, risking a diplomatic spat recently by suggesting that his country’s vintages were better than those of France. Politicians from Italy’s Left Ecology and Freedom Party even mooted introducing compulsory lessons about wine for schoolchildren aged six and older.

The country’s producers while Italians are drinking less wine, they are opting for higher-quality fare, especially bottles registered as superior with “denomination of origin” or “denomination of controlled origin” labels.

Instead of trying to revive the sluggish domestic market, Italian wine producers have focused on the lucrative export market. More Italian wine is now drunk outside Italy than in the country, according to the state-run Istat statistics agency.

Italian drinks are becoming increasingly popular abroad, and particularly in the US and Germany, with chianti and prosecco among the best-loved names worldwide.

That drive nudged Italy past France as the world’s top wine producer last year, with Spain taking second place on the podium.

French winegrowers have also been powerless to stem the slide in domestic wine consumption, which has plummeted from 160 litres a year per head in 1965 to little more than a quarter that amount last year.