Wine production, like any industry that takes place on a global scale, involves many different players. First and foremost, and inarguably the most important, you have the wine producing countries. Without countries that concoct wine, bottle it up, package the wine bottles, prepare the wine for shipment, distribute wine to other nations, and collect income from the wine they have produced and sold, there would be no wine industry to even talk about.
So, the countries that produce wine are the very essential. But in the same token, without countries that act as paying customers, the wine producing countries would have nowhere to outsource their product, and as a result, there would be little to no point in producing wine on such a large scale because there would be no source of income stemming from the production process. At the end of the day, the wine production business cannot flourish without customers, and customers would have nothing to purchase without the countries that are responsible for producing wine.
As you can see, there are countries that produce, import, or export wine on nearly every continent on Earth. Some of these nations may surprise you, and that is probably because they are not wine producing countries, but rather, they consume wine on an annual basis. Speaking of wine producing countries, let’s direct our focus to the countries that have wine production processes in place and produce wine on a serious level.
To give you an idea of how the top twenty wine producing countries stack up against each other, here are the top twenty countries followed by their wine production in terms of tonnes of wine per year…
- Italy, 4,796,600 tonnes
- Spain, 4,607,850 tonnes
- France, 4,293,466 tonnes
- The United States of America, 3,300,000 tonnes
- China, 1,700,000 tonnes
- Argentina, 1,498,380 tonnes
- Chile, 1,214,000 tonnes
- Australia, 1,186,343 tonnes
- South Africa, 1,146,006 tonnes
- Germany, 920,200 tonnes
- Portugal, 603,327 tonnes
- Romania, 378,283 tonnes
- Greece, 334,300 tonnes
- Russia, 327,400 tonnes
- New Zealand, 320,400 tonnes
- Brazil, 273,100 tonnes
- Hungary, 258,520 tonnes
- Austria, 199,869 tonnes
- Serbia, 198,183 tonnes
- Moldova, 149,850 tonnes
These values are very interesting when you compare them to previous surveys and wine production rates that were taken a few years ago. In 2013, there were tens of thousands of tonnes of wine exported and distributed to countries around the world. These values only account for the volume of wine that was sent across borders for the sake of selling and consuming abroad, beyond the scope of the places where wine is actually produced.
Here is a list of the top ten countries that exported the most volume of wine, per tonne, in the year 2013…
- Italy, exported 2,016 tones
- Spain, exported 1,831 tonnes
- France, exported 1,515 tonnes
- Chile, exported 879 tonnes
- Australia, exported 711 tonnes
- South Africa, exported 605 tonnes
- The United States of America, exported 414 tonnes
- Germany, exported 400 tonnes
- Argentina, exported 322 tonnes
- Portugal, exported 306 tonnes
These ten countries with the highest rates of wine exportation in 2013 amassed a total of 10,316 tonnes of wine in exports during the course of one year. All of the countries that are involved in exporting wine to other parts of the world each hold a percentage of stock in the wine production industry. The market shares are calculated in terms of the US dollar, and the amount of stock that each country has in its name is listed in percentages.
- France, 30% of total market value
- Italy, 19% of total market value
- Spain, 10% of total market value
- Chile, 6% of total market value
- Australia, 5% of total market value
- The United States of America, 4% of total market value
- Germany, 4% of total market value
- New Zealand, 3% of total market value
- Portugal, 3% of total market value
- Argentina, 3% of total market value
Although we are focused on wine production across the globe, it's equally as interesting and relevant to take a look at the rates of consumption around the world. Wine is a hot commodity, hence its prevalence in the world of trade. While many of the countries known to produce wine are also very prominently regarded as places where the most wine is consumed, there are many countries that do not produce wine but purchase it from other countries and have it imported every year.
Here are the top ten countries on the list of countries that consume the most wine...
- France, 8.14 liters of wine per capita
- Portugal, 6.65 liters of wine per capita
- Italy, 6.38 liters of wine per capita
- Croatia, 5.80 liters of wine per capita
- Andorra, 5.69 liters of wine per capita
- Switzerland, 5.10 liters of wine per capita
- Slovenia, 5.10 liters of wine per capita
- Hungary, 4.94 liters of wine per capita
- Moldova, 4.67 liters of wine per capita
- Argentina, 4.62 liters of wine per capita