Worldwide wine shipments reach €33.66 billion (+13.4%)

The 10.83 billion liters (+5.4%), for 33.66 billion euros (+13.4%) of wine exported in the 12 months from September 2020 to September 2021, marks a real record in the world wine trade, with the highest average price ever recorded, at 3.11 euros per liter, as shown by data from the Observatorio Español del Mercado del Vino, which underlines that the 2020 crisis, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, was indeed very hard, especially in terms of falling sales, but all in all short-lived, at least in its acute phase. Wines with the highest added value, i.e. sparkling and bottled, were the protagonists of the recovery in 2021, after having suffered the most from the decline in 2020. On the other hand, the bag-in-box format, which had held up well during the pandemic, collapsed, with the bulk wine trade holding up, but at average prices that lost something. In terms of percentage growth, in value terms, France, the world’s leading wine exporter, recorded +26% over the 12 months, lagging behind Italy and Spain in terms of volume, with the Iberian country growing by +17.4%. The almost total disappearance from the Chinese market, due to duties imposed by Beijing, dragged down sales of Australian wines, but exports from Chile and New Zealand did not fare well either, unlike South Africa and Portugal.

The 11 most important exporting countries - France, Italy, Spain, Chile, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Germany, Portugal, Argentina and South Africa - account for 87.8% of the volumes and 87.1% of the total value of wine exported worldwide between September 2020 and September 2021. The sum of Italy, France and Spain accounts for 55.4% of volumes and 61.5% of the total value of wine exports, with Spain confirming its position in first place in terms of volumes (2.34 billion liters), ahead of Italy (2.18 billion liters, +4.9%) and France (1.46 billion liters, +8.8%). The star of the growth in the value of wine exported in the period was France, which increased by 26.1% to 10.81 billion euros. Italy is also doing well (as we have often reported by analyzing the ISTAT data, which arrived in October 2021), which in the period examined by the Oemv grew by +11.3% to 7 billion euros, with Spain at 2.89 billion euros (+10.7%).

As mentioned above, the best performing category in terms of value was sparkling wines, which grew by 26.3% or EUR 1.47 billion between September 2020 and September 2021. Bottled still wines also showed a positive sign (+12.2%), with turnover increasing by EUR 2.54 billion. On the other hand, both bag-in-box (-1.9%) and bulk wine (-3.6%) were negative. The trend was similar in terms of value, with sparkling wines up 18.8% (+163.3 million liters), bottled wine up 5.5% (+297.6 million liters), but bulk wine was also in positive territory (+2.9%, equal to +100.6 million liters), unlike bag-in-box (-4.8%, equal to -20.2 million hectolitres). Thus, bottled wine currently accounts for 53% of the wine export market in terms of volume (5.74 billion liters) and 69.3% in terms of value (23.31 billion euros), with an average price of 4.06 euros. Sparkling wines, on the other hand, account for 1.03 billion liters in volume (9.5%) and 7.07 billion euros in value (21%). Finally, bulk wine accounted for 32.9% of volumes shipped (3.56 billion liters) and 7.4% of value sales (2.48 billion euros).

The performance of the various categories in the three main countries for the world wine market is also interesting. In France, sparkling wines recorded +31.2% by value, +28.8% by volume and an increase in the average price of +1.9%, while in Italy sparkling wines grew more moderately, +18.8% by value and +20.6% by volume, with a consequent fall in the average price of -1.5%, while Cava pushed the average price of sparkling wines in Spain up to +18.7%, the result of +15.1% by value and -3.1% by value. In terms of volume, shipments of bottled still wine in Italy grew by +5.9% to 1.26 billion liters, in France by +7.9% to 1.02 billion liters and in Spain by +10.4% to 778 million liters. In terms of value, however, it is still France that has grown more than the others: +24.6% and an export turnover of 6.74 billion euros, at an average price of 6.56 euros per liter. Behind is Italy, with 4.82 billion euros (+10.3%), at 3.82 euros per liter, then Spain, at 1.83 billion euros (11.4%) and an average price of 2.36 euros per liter.