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Fine Italian wine gets pricier
02/09/2002 18:05 - (SA)
David Brough and Julia Hancock
Rome - Italian wine makers are braced for the lowest grape harvest in decades after violent hailstorms last month wrecked vines, meaning the price of the country's top wines is set to rise.
"Hail came down like golf balls - chopping down vine groves," Federico Castellucci, director general of Federvini, which represents 320 wine and spirit makers, said on Monday. "The northeast of Italy had very big problems."
Agricultural research group ISMEA on Monday estimated a 5% year-on-year drop in wine production this year.
Italian farmers' group Coldiretti believes the storm damage will knock 3-4% from wine output this year.
Italy is the world's second biggest producer of wine after France, according to the most recent figures from the Paris-based industry group, Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin.
Prices of grapes for Pinot Grigio, a celebrated white wine, and of Amarone, a high-grade Valpolicella red wine, both export-quality fare from Veneto region in northeast Italy, were spiking higher amid strong demand after the storms, Federvini's Castellucci said.
But prices of table wines were seen as stable due to a stock overhang from 2001 and competition from a number of foreign countries, analysts said.
Italy has declared a state of disaster in the northern regions of Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont because of the weather damage and has invited farmers to submit compensation claims.
Farm groups estimate total damage to crops from bad weather in northern and central Italy at more than US$295m.
- Reuters
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