EVERYONE KNOWS WHICH COUNTRIES CONSUME MORE WINE, BUT PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION IS SURPRISING, REVEALS THE CALIFORNIA WINE INSTITUTE 2012 STUDY. THE TOP ARE VATICAN CITY, ANDORRA AND OF COURSE, FRANCE.

We all know by heart the countries that consume the most wine: France, Italy, USA, Germany, China, Spain ... But if we shift the focus to per capita consumption, and widen the circle to the countries and those small states that almost never have the honor of ending up in the headlines, and rarely meet the interest of scholars and pollsters, the landscape changes dramatically.
At the top, which won’t surprise the most attentive, is the Vatican City where, according to a study by the California Wine Institute (www.wineinstitute.org), in 2012 about 74 liters of wine were consumed per person. Of course, religious ceremonies count, especially in a state where there are only 836 people, but the gap with second place Andorra, is huge. The 85.000 people living in the country in the Pyrenees drank 46 liters of wine each, followed in third place by one of the biggest, France, at 44 liters of wine per capita, which is equivalent to something like 7 billion bottles. In fourth place, another "small" state, St. Pierre et Miquelon, the French territory on the east coast of Canada, where they consume 43.5 liters of wine per capita; Slovenia, at 43 liters; Croatia, 42 liters; Macedonia, 41.5 liters; Portugal, 41 liters; Switzerland 38; and to close the top 10, Norfolk Island, at 37 liters.
And what about the others? They are all far away, including Italy, which in 2011 was 37.6 liters of wine consumed per person, at position number 9. Our commercial partners, according to 2011 data, drink even less- UK at 20 liters per person, Germany at 24 liters and the United States at 10.46 liters per capita. And filling in the very last places, countries where it is difficult if not impossible to even try to do surveys, especially because the consumption of alcohol is completely banned by Islamic law, the Sharia: Libya, Yemen, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan and Kuwait.