Daniele Cernilli addresses the topic of the wine crisis by focusing on the reasons that are causing it. We thus try to understand why the market is trudging along.
We have never seen a sales crisis like this in the wine industry for almost four decades, since the methanol scandal of 1986. The market is trudging along both in Italy and in major foreign countries, and there are many reasons for this.
Woe to the driver
The first, the most recent, is that many are frightened by the tightening of penalties for those who get driving with a blood alcohol content greater than 0.5 mg. The new traffic code provides for even arrest above 0.8, which used to be the maximum threshold for getting behind the wheel. Mind you, drivers should not drink alcohol, in my opinion, and I have personally done so for years. But what is happening is nonetheless worrying for wine consumption and is a reason for the consumer disaffection and for the economy of businesses and restaurants. Let’s not even talk about the problems it poses for wine tourism, which had been growing sharply lately.
Alcohol is dangerous
Second reason: the WHO continues to have its representatives claim that even a small dose of alcohol can be dangerous to health, effectively challenging the concept of “moderate drinking” as unsustainable. Wine is bad for you, in short, and this also scares consumers.
Wine, or the devil
Third reason: there is a lobby against spirits and wine among parliamentarians and in European committees. There are proposals on the inclusion of wording on labels advising against its consumption. If this line were to pass, the CMOs, funds provided, among other things, to promote exports to non-EU countries, such as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Japan, which are very important for Italian wines, would be in jeopardy. If wine is bad for you, you cannot promote its consumption and facilitate its sale, in short.
The misinformation
Fourth element: some television investigations have questioned aspects related to the transparency of production, sometimes even in the presence of practices that are completely legal, but little known to the general public. The image of the industry has evidently been affected.
Overpriced wines?
Fifth and final element: the increase in prices brought about by inflation and the rising costs of corks, bottles, packaging, transportation, fertilizer, and the like. All of this means that young people are also drinking less for economic reasons, that many consumers are orienting themselves differently as a result, that, for now especially in the U.S., dealcoholic wines are gaining market share, and that sales halfway around the world are stagnating.
These are the issues on the table. For some subdued proposals the appointment is in the next editorial.
The Wine Crisis Part 1
By Daniele Cernilli February 3 2025
Mariani to taste it after almost 15 years. Being the direct heirs of those who invented the dish, they have not changed an iota of the original recipe, an act of gastronomic archeology and the restoration of a cultural and traditional asset with deeply social roots. Rigatoni con la Pajata dish is now once again the signature plate of this extraordinary restaurant which offers and maintains the best of Testaccio cuisine with wonderful versions of Coda alla Vaccinara (Ox-tail stew), Trippa alla Romana (Roman-style tripe with tomato sauce) and Coratella con Carciofi (Entrails with artichokes), along with standard Roman classic pastas like Carbonara, Amatriciano, Gricia and Cacio e Pepe. Their wine list is also very good with the bottles conserved in a cellar carved out of ‘Monte dei Cocci’, a huge mound built out of ancient stacked clay fragments from amphora dating back to Roman times. The restaurant is a magical, unique place where a meal runs around 60 euros a head, if you don’t get carried away with the wine. Walking out you cannot help but think: ‘’Screw fusion cuisine…’’. I could not agree more-traditional Roman cuisine at its best!