US becomes world’s biggest wine market

The US has overtaken France to become the world’s largest wine market by volume, according to figures released today by the International Vine and Wine Organisation (OIV).

Jean-Marie Aurand, director general of the OIV, presented the organisation’s assessment of the global wine trade at a press conference in Paris on 13 May.

It revealed that world wine consumption fell by 2.5 million hectolitres in 2013 compared to 2012 to 238.7 million hectolitres with traditional wine producing countries such as France, Italy and Spain witnessing declines in consumption of 2.1 million hectolitres, 0.8 million hectolitres and 0.2 million hectolitres respectively.

China’s consumption dropped by 3.8% in 2013 to 16.8 million hectolitres with the OIV report stating that the country’s rapid growth in consumption in recent years had appeared to “come to a sudden end”.

Bucking the trend were the South American countries of Argentina, Chile and Brazil, South Africa and Romania which all recorded a rise in wine consumption compared with 2012.

While a drop in consumption in France allowed the US to become the world’s biggest wine market in the world by volume consuming 29.1 million hectolitres of wine.

The US was closely followed by France, which consumed 28.1 million hectolitres, Italy with 21.7 million hectolitres and Spain with 9.1 million hectolitres.

Overall the value of the world’s wine trade increased by 1.5% in 2013 to €25.7 billion with bottled and sparkling wines making up the vast majority of the world’s wine; 71% still wines and 17% sparkling.

The report also warned of low wine production in the southern hemisphere in 2014, estimating a reduction of around 10% in 2014 compared with 2013.