I came across some interesting statistics about Italy a while ago. It shows how the Italian vine acreage has decreased over the past 40 years. The decrease is dramatic. In 1970 there were 1.3 million hectares of vineyards in Italy. In 2010 the figure had dropped to 663,000, a reduction of over 600,000 hectares, ie a decrease of almost 50%.
Piedmont has shrunk from 97,000 to 47,000 hectares, Campania from 50,000 to 23,000, Tuscany from 121,000 to 59,000, Puglia (Apulia) from 190,000 to 107,000, Sardinia from 65,000 to 18,000, etc.
Worst hit, however, has been the region closest to the Rome, the capital. Lazio has next to vanished with a decline from 106,000 to 17,000 hectares! Most likely a lot of the lost hectares produced rubbish wine. But still.
Read more revuesshs.u-bourgogne.fr
2 Responses
Wow! I didn’t know this about the decrease in Italy….. I was quite shocked when I read this I have to say! Thanks for sharing this interesting information.
%50 is too huge :o hope it will be back to normal form soon