ON WINE SPECTATOR’S "TOP 100" LIST, ITALY IS RIGHT AFTER THE US (30 WINES) WITH 20 WINES, WIDELY EXCEEDING FRANCE AT ONLY 14 AND THE AMERICAN MARKET IS LOOKING MORE AND MORE TO THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

On the "Top 100" by Wine Spectator, the most influential ranking the wine world, Italy counts 20 wines (the US has 30 wines), distancing France (and this isn’t the first time, as it happened in 2002, 2009, 2011 and 2014), which stopped at 14 wines. Then come Spain (10), Portugal and Australia (5), New Zealand and Chile (4), South Africa (3), Argentina (2), Austria, Germany and Greece (1), in a true reflection of the American market where more wine is consumed than in any other country in the world (30.7 million hectoliters in 2014 according to OIV data), on a market in constant growth which, of course must keep an eye on what’s going on around it.
Until a few years ago especially France and Italy were, not surprisingly, the historical wine kings (but still behind the US) of past editions of Wine Spectator’s "Top 100". Today, the panorama has changed and even though Italy is firmly the number one wine partner for American wine lovers (33% share of all wine imported), the situation behind Italy is quite different. France has slipped to fourth place and has been surpassed by Australia and Chile while Argentina is on its heels, reveal data from Lucio Caputo’s Italian Wine & Food Institute (www.iwfinews.com).
Countries in the southern hemisphere are on the rise also quality-wise, and together now account for 42.3% of the import market; with New Zealand the percentages goes beyond 50%. This means that Spain, Germany and Portugal, together, have a market share of just 8.4%. The qualitative growth is of course, not enough to explain the commercial trend, and the unfavorable euro-dollar exchange rate does have some bearing on volume of imports from European countries, making them less competitive.
On the other hand, the polarization of imports from a few countries is growing- Italy, Australia and Chile hold more than 60% of the import market share that exceeds 80% in volume and 79% in value when Argentina and France are included, too.