Is Italian wine better than French ?

Only one week after the "Carbonara Gate", the Franco-Italian culinary war is still raging and now reaches the wine. The head of the Italian government, Matteo Renzi, said this Monday at an Italian winegrowers ’show in Verona that Italian wines are“ better than French wines ”.

Far from stopping there, he claims the French president has not frankly contradicted it. "When I told François Hollande, he responded to me : Perhaps, but ours sells for more. Games, sets and match François Hollande ». Who is telling the truth ? Is Italian wine really better ?

Italian production versus French production

According to the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), Italian wine production was, in 2015, 48,8 million hectoliters (+10 % in one year), against 47,3 millions (+1 %) for France. Spain, she, keeps his place on the last step of the podium, with 36,6 million hectoliters produced. Italian production is therefore higher than French production, but that does not allow for quality.

Is French wine really more expensive ?

We had seen this before in the article " What is the most expensive wine in the world ? ", the majority of the most expensive wines in the world are indeed French wines. The best way to find out is to consult the top 50 of the most expensive wines in the world established by the Wine Searcher site, on the basis of seven million offers, all vintages combined. In its latest edition, we find 38 french wines, eleven german wines, an American and above all ... no Italian wine !

The most expensive of them remains a bottle of Romanée-Conti. This Burgundy Grand Cru is traded at more than 13’000 dollars, or more than 11,500 euros per bottle.

Is Italian wine still better ?

It is always difficult to judge the quality of wines from an entire country. Like in France, it is possible to find very good and very bad wines in Italy. The best way to judge if Italian wine is better is therefore to use international rankings and prices.

Whether you like the famous taster Robert Parker or not, there is still an interesting source for judging the quality of a wine. In 2015, he honored 300 wines with a maximum score of 100/100 worldwide. Among them, 204 are french… and few are Italian. The Rhône Valley is particularly honored alongside Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie.

But maybe Robert Parker is a fan of French wines ? So let's take a look at the ranking of the Anglo-American review Decanter which highlights the best wines in the world.. From 35 award-winning wines from ten different countries, 8 French wines appear. With these two red wines, two roses, three whites and one Champagne, France occupies the first place in the ranking. Italy, she, only comes in 5th position, with 3 award-winning wines.

It is important to have a finish

You are certainly wondering what fly stung Matteo Renzi to say that. Stopping at this level of the article, it just seems wrong - or at least downright chauvinistic —.

In fact, he was trying to convince Jack Ma to invest in Italian wine, believing that "The French have succeeded in building a history around their wine, this is what we have to do. […] Globalization is not our enemy, we have to stop thinking that companies that go abroad are traitors ". M. Renzi also met Jack Ma, CEO of Chinese group Alibaba, the e-commerce giant, who said he wanted to make his company "the gateway for Italian products to China".

"People like me love Italy, you have wonderful products, your spirit of innovation has always been a source of inspiration to me ", said M. Ma, while advising Italians to use the Internet more. "The future of Alibaba and that of Italy are intimately linked. Jack understood that digital technology can transform our economy (…) We can now do in eight seconds what Marco Polo did in eight years ", Matteo Renzi replied.

According to Matteo Renzi, “Over the past twenty years, Italy has lost too many opportunities in this sector ". He therefore set the goal of his country's agrifood sector to achieve the 50 billion euros exported from here 2020, and its wines up to 7,5 Billions of Euro's.

Jean-Nicolas Mouretin