Although Italian wine exports continue to set new records, the sector is at risk because of falling domestic demand and a drop in production.
This was the message to come out of a report given to the annual meeting of sector associations representing wine producers, marketers and experts here on Friday.
In order to avoid a crisis, the report said it was necessary, among other things, to simplify the laws and norms which regulate the sector.
Wine is Italy's leading agricultural export and last year the value of wine exports hit 3.3 billion euros, about 25% of all farm exports.
However, over the past 20 years domestic per capita consumption of wine has fallen from over 100 liters a year to 46 last year, production had declined by 17% and the amount of land used to grow wine grapes has shrunk by 35%.
Speaking at the Venice meeting, the chairman of the association of winemakers Assoenologi, Giancarlo Prevarin, observed how ''the average amount of land Italian farms dedicate to vineyards is two hectares, compared to seven in France and over 300 in Australia''.
''And of the over 300,000 firms bottling wine, over 75% sell their product to the domestic market while of the over 5,000 vineyards exporting Italian wine only a couple of hundred sell more than a container-full,'' he added.
Assoenologi General Director Giuseppe Martelli pointed out that 21 agencies and offices are involved on regulating and inspecting vineyards and that each winemaker ''spends 25% of his time filling out forms and making reports''.
''Why isn't there a a common data bank which can store all this information?'' he asked.
One of the reasons why such a system does not exist, Martelli explained, was that the processing of information regarding vineyards, especially those producing guaranteed controlled wines, ''is incomplete and backlogged since 2005''.
''It is impossible to make medium and long-term plans for our sector when we don't have this information,'' he added.
Another problem facing the sector, experts pointed out, was that in Italy there are only 352 Italian vineyard certified to produce wines which guarantee quality and origin, only 30% of the total, compared to 474 in France.
''Furthermore, many Italian vineyards producing quality wines are not fulfilling their potential and there are even those which have accreditation on paper but are nor bottling wine,'' Martelli said.
