Aug 6, 2026

Wine consumption trends and climate change: why the future runs through quality

People still drink wine in Italy, but differently than they did ten years ago.

Wine consumption in Italy is changing in both frequency and meaning. Those who once uncorked a bottle every evening now pick an occasion, a label, a story to share at the table. This shift in habits is intertwined with a less visible but equally real transformation, that of the climate, which is altering when and how grapes ripen in the vineyard.

The two are more connected than they seem. If wine drinkers are drinking less often but with more attention, then producers are called on to deliver higher quality, just as the climate is making that work harder.

In this article, we’ll try to tell both stories, and why for a winery like Boroli the answer stays the same: work well, even if it means producing less.

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How Wine Consumption Is Changing

The Istat data show a country drinking less wine, without giving it up entirely. In 2025, the share of Italians who drank wine at least once fell to 54.1%, down from 54.7% the year before. For the first time in over a decade, the decline isn’t limited to daily drinkers, who slipped from 12.7% to 12.4%, but also reaches those who drink only occasionally, a group that until recently offset the loss of regular drinkers.

Wine, once an everyday product tied to meals, is shifting toward rarer, more specific moments, often on the weekend, following a trend that some observers liken to the habits of Northern European countries. It’s not a sudden collapse, but a path that has been unfolding for years and that mostly involves men and the regions of Central Italy.

Less Quantity, More Attention: What Those Who Keep Drinking Are Looking For

Hidden within this decline is a figure that matters for anyone producing high-end wine. Drinking less doesn’t mean settling for less. In large-scale retail, overall volumes are falling, but more expensive bottles keep selling well, and in fact are growing in value. It’s what the industry calls polarization. Fewer people drink wine regularly, but those who do are willing to spend more on a bottle that’s truly worth it.

This is a consumer who, even before the label, wants to understand how that wine is made, by what method, on what soil, according to what philosophy. They don’t drink out of habit, but by choice. For a winery like Boroli, which deliberately produces less fruit than the regulations would allow and hand-selects the clusters, this shift isn’t a problem: it confirms that betting on quality, even at the cost of volume, is the right road.

The Role of Young People: New Languages and New Occasions

It’s often said that young people have abandoned wine. The data tell a different story. The 18-24 age group is the only one to have grown significantly in recent years among wine drinkers, while the general decline had begun well before this generation became relevant to the market. The occasions change, less the everyday glass, more the aperitivo or the organized tasting, but the interest remains.

At the same time, more and more young people say they want to drink less alcohol in general, not just wine. It’s a twofold signal that asks wineries for a different way of making themselves known, no longer just as a product to consume, but as an experience to understand and to live.

Why the Climate Concerns Those Who Choose What to Drink, Too

While drinkers ask for more quality, the climate makes it increasingly hard to guarantee it. Out-of-season heat waves, spells of drought, and sudden events like hailstorms and late frosts are changing the way the vine faces each year. The most visible effect is that the grapes ripen earlier than expected, and this creates a mismatch between two processes that should happen together. On one side, the buildup of sugars in the berry (what’s called technological ripeness in the vineyard), on the other, the development of color, tannins, and aromas (phenolic ripeness).

In practice, grapes can look ready to pick, because they’re already sweet enough, long before they’ve truly developed their aromatic character. Deciding when to harvest thus becomes a matter of constant observation, day after day, rather than a date set in advance.

Ripeness and Acidity: The Challenges for Piedmontese Wines

For Langhe Nebbiolo, a grape that ripens late by nature, and has always done so unhurriedly, this imbalance weighs heavily. Higher temperatures move the harvest up and lower the grape’s acidity, that sense of freshness which makes a wine pleasant to drink and able to age well over time. At the same time, more sugar in the grapes often means more alcohol in the finished wine, with the risk of bottles less balanced than tradition calls for.

For an appellation like Barolo DOCG, where elegance comes precisely from the right balance between tannin, freshness, and aromas, these aren’t technical details: they’re the very heart of the wine’s identity.

Shade Netting: How Boroli Protects the Grapes from the Heat

Faced with these difficulties, those who work in the vineyard are testing concrete solutions. Among the most talked-about are shade nets: designed as anti-hail protection to shield the clusters from hail, they’ve also proven useful for reducing direct sun exposure during the hottest hours, keeping the grapes from getting “sunburned” and helping preserve more freshness in the fruit on scorching days.

Alongside this, in many Italian wine regions there’s also work on canopy management and on grape varieties more resistant to drought. These are different ways of tackling the same problem, giving the grapes time to ripen in balance even when the climate moves faster than expected.

The Boroli Case: Watching the Season, Harvest After Harvest

At Boroli, this attention has become a concrete experiment in the Villero vineyard, one of the winery’s most important sites in Castiglione Falletto, facing south and southwest. On the side most exposed to the sun, shade nets have been installed, designed specifically to filter light differently depending on the area, to understand how they protect the Nebbiolo grapes destined for Barolo Villero, a full-bodied wine that needs time and a long process in the cellar to express its character.

To follow the experiment, small measuring instruments have been set up in the vineyard that record temperature and soil and air humidity every day. It’s a way to understand, season after season, whether and how much the nets truly help improve the quality of the grapes, an ongoing process of observation that accompanies every harvest, in keeping with a way of working that blends experimentation with respect for the Langhe tradition.

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A Wine That Doesn’t Hide the Vintage

If today’s drinkers are looking for transparency, the most honest answer isn’t to hide the difficulties of a tricky vintage, but to explain them. A winery that openly shares the choices made in the vineyard, when the grapes were picked, how they were protected from a hotter-than-average summer, offers the reader something more than a label: a verifiable story, made of concrete choices rather than catchy words.

It’s a different way of thinking about wine, namely as the result of a continuous dialogue between season, soil, and human decisions. For those who visit the winery or read the Boroli blog, each cru, meaning each specific vineyard, with its own soil and its own history, from which a wine with distinct characteristics is born, becomes in this way the story of a terroir, but also of a particular vintage, with its difficulties and its solutions.

Why the Future of Premium Wine Comes Down to Experience

The picture is clear: wine consumption in Italy keeps falling in volume, but those who keep drinking ask for more quality and more truth. In this context, premium wine isn’t decided by the number of occasions on which it’s chosen, but by the depth of what it manages to offer: a winery visit, a guided tasting, the chance to see firsthand the work behind every bottle.

For Boroli, this means continuing to invest in agronomic research and hospitality at the winery, building a bond with those who choose Barolo not out of habit, but with awareness.

Conclusions

Wine consumption in Italy is changing. Frequency is falling, but attention to quality is growing, along with interest in what lies behind every bottle. At the same time, the climate is imposing on viticulture a constant work of observation, from the shade nets Boroli is testing in the Villero vineyard to choosing the right day to harvest.

Two different changes that lead to the same conclusion: the future of premium wine is measured by the ability to stay faithful to a method and to a place. In the Langhe, among the rows of Castiglione Falletto, that faithfulness has a name: Boroli.

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FAQ

How much did wine consumption in Italy drop in 2025?
According to Istat data, in 2025 the share of Italians who drank wine fell to 54.1% of the population, down from 54.7% in 2024. For the first time in over ten years, occasional drinkers are declining too, not just daily ones.

Have young people really abandoned wine?
No: the 18-24 age group is the only one to have grown as a share of wine drinkers in recent years. The general decline in consumption had begun before this generation became relevant to the market.

How does climate change affect Barolo?
Higher temperatures move the harvest up and lower the grape’s acidity, that is, its freshness, while more sugar in the grapes can mean more alcohol in the wine. For Nebbiolo, which ripens late by nature, this imbalance is one of the hardest challenges to manage.

What are shade nets in the vineyard for?
Originally designed to protect clusters from hail, they also reduce direct sun exposure during the hottest hours, helping preserve more freshness in the grapes during heat waves.

What is Boroli testing to cope with the changing climate?
Boroli has launched an experiment in the Villero vineyard with shade nets at two different intensities, monitored with instruments that record temperature and humidity, to understand the effect on the quality of the Nebbiolo.

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WINERY

The Boroli cellars, located in Castiglione Falletto, are the perfect place to experience the magical territory of the Langhe through tasting experiences and to enjoy an unforgettable experience of discovery and great wine.