“There is a lot of juice in a shrinking market,” an Italian wine exec recently said to me in a meeting. I couldn’t agree more. This week, in the day job, we finally closed out our year. Initial reports are showing a rally in December and the Italian wine sales were better than I expected. In fact, in the flyover world that I track, Italy outpaced France and Spain (easily) and might have eclipsed even Australia. I will post a more detailed report when the bandwidth cools down in the building from everyone wanting to pull reports at the same time.That said, I have had at least four calls this week from suppliers looking for a home. My terse advice in this moment is a two parter: 1) move here and dig in or 2) stay home and wait it out for the next 18 months.
The ark is full and there is absolutely no more room in the market for anymore Italian wine. If you have an importer and a distributor, stick with them, work with them. Stay where you are. If you are homeless, I am sorry for you. The market is over saturated. For now.
More to come.
