Wine production and trade in the EU

This week, wine lovers will celebrate Beaujolais Nouveau Day (19 November) – so it is an appropriate time to look at the latest data on the major wine exporters and importers in the European Union (EU).

In 2019, the sold production of wine (including sparkling wine, port and grape must) in the EU was around 16 billion (bn) litres. The largest wine producers were Italy, Spain and France, followed by Portugal, Germany and Hungary.

Source dataset: DS-066341

Top exporter: Italy

In 2019, the EU Member States exported 7.1 bn litres of wine. Almost half of this wine was exported to countries outside of the EU (3.1 bn litres, or 43% of the total wine exports), mainly to the United Kingdom (0.69 bn litres, or 22% of extra-EU exports) and the United States (0.65 bn litres, 21%), followed by Russia (0.28 bn litres, 9%) and China (0.25 bn litres, 8%).

Italy was by far the top exporter of wine, with extra-EU exports of 1.1 bn litres in 2019, representing 34% of the EU Member States’ extra-EU exports of wine. It was followed by France (0.8 bn litres, 25%) and Spain (0.7 bn litres, 22%).

Source dataset: DS-645593

Top importer: Germany

Looking at the import flows, the EU Member States imported a total of 4.8 bn litres of wine in 2019. Only 16% of this came from non-EU countries, notably from Chile (0.17 bn litres, 23% of extra-EU imports) and South Africa (0.16 bn litres, 21%).

Among the EU Member States, the largest importers of wine were Germany (0.23 bn litres, or 30% of the EU Member States’ extra-EU imports), the Netherlands (0.11 bn litres, 15%), Denmark (0.07 bn litres, 9%), Sweden (0.06 bn litres, 8%), Belgium and France (both 0.05 bn litres, 7%) and Ireland (almost 0.05 bn litres, 6%).

Notes:

• Production data: The sampling frame of the survey includes all enterprises, authorities and organisations that carry out any target industrial activity and have 20 employees or more.
• Trade data:
  • Total EU trade is calculated by the adding of intra-EU trade and extra-EU trade. Due to quasi-transit trade, this may lead to double counting. An example of this would be wine imported from Chile via the Netherlands, where it is cleared by customs for free circulation, before being dispatched to Ireland. This would lead to the same wine being counted as an import by both the Netherlands and Ireland. More precisely, it would appear in the Netherlands’ extra-EU imports from Chile and intra-EU exports to Ireland and in Ireland’s intra-EU imports from the Netherlands.
  • The EU27 data reflect the political change in the EU composition so the UK is considered as an extra-EU partner country for the EU27. However, the UK is still part of the internal market until the end of the transitory period, meaning that data on trade with the UK are still based on statistical concepts applicable to trade between the EU Member States. Consequently, while imports from any other extra-EU27 trade partner are grouped by country of origin, the UK data reflect country of consignment. In practice, this means that the goods imported by the EU27 from the UK were physically transported from the UK but part of these goods could have been of other origin than the UK. For this reason, data on trade with the UK are not fully comparable with data on trade with other extra-EU27 trade partners.
• The European Union (EU) includes 27 EU Member States. The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Further information is published here.