Historias

Let it flow: the global trade in wine (en)

4 octubre 2018

ITC Noticias

European countries remain the world’s top wine exporters, but other countries are catching up.

Across the Northern Hemisphere, vineyards these days are full of grape pickers. Despite problems caused by climate change, many are hoping for a bumper harvest as a result of this summer’s hot weather. Probably the most popular beverage in the world after water, the global trade in wine was worth more than $35.5 billion in 2017. Europe accounted for 69% of these exports, led by France, Italy and Spain.

Wine from other continents are doing well international markets, too. Australia, for example, exported more wine than Spain between 2004 and 2006. In 2017 it exported $2.1 billion worth of wine and in 2013-2017, its exports grew at a steady 3%. Australia’s main markets were China, the US and the UK, importing respectively $655m, $359m and $279 million worth of wine. Still, Australia has room for growth with $153.8m in unexplored wine export opportunities.

Since 2010 Chile has become a serious competitor to Australia, surpassing the latter’s wine exports between 2013 and 2016, and exporting $2 billion in 2017. In addition, Chile is targeting similar markets. In 2017, the top three destinations for Chilean wine were China, the US and Japan, with exports of $323m, $248m and $207m respectively.

Europe aside, the country with the most untapped wine export potential is South Africa. This is despite South Africa not being among the world’s top 10 wine exporters, and is behind other so-called ‘new world wine’ exporters such as New Zealand and Argentina. Currently South Africa exports $717m worth of wine, but has $273m worth of opportunities to explore, according Export Potential Map.

The biggest markets for wine are the United States and the United Kingdom, importing $6.2 billion and $4.1 billion respectively, followed by Germany and China.

In fact, China, together with Hong Kong, in 2013-17 experienced steady growth in wine imports of 18% and 12% respectively. This could partly be a result of China lowering its tariffs on wine from certain countries considerably in the past decade, setting it on course to soon become the second largest importer after the US.

Visit TradeMap for more data on trade flows, MacMap for data on tariffs, and Export Potential Map to discover trade opportunities.

Top 10 exporters of wine in 2017 (million USD)