Back Wine production and trade in the EU

21 November 2019

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This week, wine lovers will celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau Day (21 November) – so it is an appropriate time to look at the latest data on the major wine exporters and importers in the European Union (EU).

In 2018, the sold production of wine (including sparkling wine, port and grape must) in the EU was around 15 billion litres. The largest wine producers were Italy, Spain and France, followed by Portugal, Germany and Hungary.

 

EU Member States' trade in wine, 2018

The source dataset on production and trade of wine.

 

Top exporter: France

In 2018, the EU Member States exported €22.7 billion (bn) of wine. Over half of this wine was exported to countries outside of the EU (€11.6 bn, or 51% of the total wine exports), mainly to the United States (€3.8 bn, or 33% of extra-EU exports), followed by Switzerland (€1.0 bn, 9%), China (€1.0 bn, 8%), Canada (€0.9 bn, 8%), Japan and Hong Kong (both €0.8 bn, 7%).

France was by far the top exporter of wine, with extra-EU exports worth €5.4 bn in 2018, representing 47% of the EU Member States' extra-EU exports of wine. It was followed by Italy (€3.1 bn, 26%) and Spain (€1.2 bn, 10%).

 

Top importer: The United Kingdom

Looking at the import flows, the EU Member States imported a total of €13.4 bn of wine in 2018. Only 20% of this came from non-EU countries, notably from Chile (€0.6 bn, 22% of extra-EU imports), Australia (€0.45 bn, 17%), the United States (€0.43 bn, 16%), South Africa (€0.4 bn, 15%) and New Zealand (€0.37 bn, 14%).

Among the EU Member States, the largest importer of wine was the United Kingdom (€1.2 bn, or 47% of the EU Member States' extra-EU imports), followed by Germany (€0.3 bn, 11%), the Netherlands (€0.2 bn, 9%) and France (€0.2 bn, 8%).

 

 Note:

  • Production data: The sampling frame of the survey includes all enterprises, authorities and organisations that carry out any target industrial activity and have 20 employees or more.
  • Trade data: Due to quasi-transit trade, the adding of intra-EU trade and extra-EU trade may lead to double counting. An example of this would be wine imported from Chile via the Netherlands, where it is cleared by customs for free circulation, before being dispatched to the United Kingdom. This would lead to the same wine being counted as an import by both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. More precisely, it would appear in the Netherlands' extra-EU imports from Chile and intra-EU exports to the United Kingdom and in the United Kingdom's intra-EU imports from the Netherlands.

 

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