Treviso (Italy) (AFP)
Restaurants and bars closed, parties and weddings prohibited, gloom not encouraging to toast: from prosecco to chianti, Italian wine producers are suffering the brunt of the coronavirus epidemic with a sharp drop in sales.
The peninsula prides itself on being the world's leading producer of wine (with 47.5 million hectoliters last year), just ahead of France (42.1 million), from which it took this title in 2015.
A large part is sold abroad, which enabled the country to garner 6.4 billion euros last year (compared to 9.8 billion for France, which remains the leading exporter in value).
But "for a month and a half, a whole distribution channel, that of hotels, restaurants, caterers and cafes has been closed in Italy. Then gradually, it has closed in the rest of Europe and across the Atlantic" because containment measures, "and sales of prosecco via this channel are now close to zero," laments Lodovico Giustiniani, president of the agricultural organization Confagricoltura in Veneto (northeast).
"The other channel, that of large distribution (supermarkets), still works, but it cannot compensate the sales of a channel completely stopped," he notes.
Its own cellar, Borgoluce, which does not sell in mass distribution and is very present abroad (United States, Canada, Southeast Asia ...), suffered a fall of ... 90% of its sales in March.
And "the consumption that we did not have during these two months, we will not recover it: people will not drink in addition what they did not drink at a given time", recalls, as evidence, the winemaker.
- Strength become weakness -
In Piedmont (north-west), concern is also high.
For the barolo, the situation "is very critical, because it is sold 90% in world catering, now closed," said AFP Paolo Boffa, president of the Terre del Barolo cooperative.
The barolo has wagered for several decades on "maximum quality", and has been promoted on the cards of the best restaurants in the world, he notes. But what was a strength is revealing a weakness today.
The bottling lines of the cooperative, which has 300 producers, continue to operate, thanks to other wines such as barbera or dolcetto, at prices for the general public, and which experience "good consumption in mass distribution in Italy and Europe, "says Boffa.
But here too, "these sales cannot save the company's balance sheet".
The producers, wherever they are, are thinking about the measures that can be taken when the next harvest will take place in a few months. Where to put it while the cellars are still full?
Barolo producers ask to be able to store outside the traditional production area, which is normally prohibited for them.
They also think, like the producers of prosecco, to reduce the production of their vines.
A "drastic" decision that the Chianti Wine Consortium has already taken, by lowering its production by 20% at the risk of causing "serious economic damage to companies", according to its president, Giovanni Busi.
While according to him many producers "are on the verge of bankruptcy", he deplores "the abyssal distance between the innumerable announcements made by the government (...) and the reality" lived by the entrepreneurs "who see themselves slamming the door in the nose by the banks ".
- "Sacrifices" -
Some producers also plan to distill part of the production, in order to transform it into alcohol (ethanol), which could for example be used for the manufacture of hydroalcoholic gel.
French, Italian and Spanish wine cooperatives have therefore asked the European Union "to open without delay a European crisis distillation of 10 million hectoliters with an exceptional European budget of 350 million euros".
The solution could tempt producers whose wine does not keep much, like prosecco, a "very young wine" that "one cannot age as one does with red wines", underlines Mr. Giustiniani .
A possibility excluded on the other hand for high-end wines like barolo, which can be kept.
While the Italian government has set June 1 as the possible reopening of bars and restaurants, the sector, stresses Mr. Boffa, sees in it "great and beautiful news", even if it fears a low influx due to the concern to be contaminated.
"We have all understood the gravity of this epidemic and the crisis it will cause for our families. But we farmers are used to the sacrifices and once again we will not give up," he said.
© 2020 AFP