Italy’s wine consumption is at its weakest since Italy was unified as a country in 1861, according to the country’s main farmers’ association.

One of the world’s biggest producers of wine, Italy is hitting record lows for domestic wine drinking, forcing many winemakers to seek new buyers overseas.

A spokesman of the association said in a recent interview that “the most immediate cause has been the economic downturn, which has pinched incomes. But that has just accelerated what has been a decades-long slide in consumption”.

This year Italians are expected to drink around 40 litres per head (10.6 gallons), down from 45 litres (11.9 gallons) before the financial crisis began in 2007, and just about a third of the 110 litres (29 gallons) in the 1970s, according to Assoenologi, the main enologists’ association.

A law professor and wine expert from the University of Gastronomic Studies said: “Wine has become a hedonistic product, which is not part of Italians’ basic diet anymore.”

Wine has become a hedonistic product, which is not part of Italians’ basic diet anymore

Italians’ change of attitude is going hand in hand with the increasing popularity of other, more casual alcoholic drinks, above all, beer, particularly among the younger generations.

While the average Italian’s consumption of wine is only a third of what it was in the 1970s, beer drinking has doubled.