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Austrian wine exports show increase in value

23 April 2024 By James Evison

The value of Austrian wine exports has risen by 2.7% but volumes have fallen due to a “pronounced drop” in bulk wine exports, the Austrian Wine Marketing Board has revealed.

The group said that exports rose to €238.2 million and stated that it was “noticing restrained dynamics in both the domestic and international markets”.

According to figures from Statistics Austria on 2023 volumes, exports of Austrian wine totalled 65 million litres, equivalent to €238.2 million in value.

This corresponds to a growth in value of 2.7% and a decline in volume of 4.7%. As a result, the average price per litre reached an all-time high of €3.66.In terms of the individual product groups, white wines in bottles saw a rise in export value of 7.3% and red wines in bottles of 3.4%.

Bulk wine

Bulk wines, on the other hand, saw an overall drop in value of 3.2%, and a decline of 23.4% in volume. This was the main reason behind the fall in the total export volume. An area that proved particularly difficult in the last year was the export of Austrian semi-sparkling (-35.7% export value) and sparkling wines (-27.1% export value).

Austria experienced a decline in value in the next most important export destinations, Switzerland (-15.5%), the Netherlands (-2.2%), the USA (-11.5%) and the northern monopoly markets (Finland, Norway and Sweden; -4.1%). On the other hand, values rose again in Canada (+16.7%) and in the Asian markets (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea; +11.3%).

Strategy working

Chris Yorke, CEO of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board (Austrian Wine) said: “Already at the start of last year, we realised that the difficult global economic situation would impact negatively on our exports. We therefore anticipated only minimum growth in value, which has proven to be correct.

“If we break it down, what we see is that there has been a decline in bulk wine sales in particular, while sales of wine in bottles actually rose slightly. This essentially shows that our value creation strategy is working, even if we have to consider the increase in value against the context of high inflation. However, from discussions with international colleagues, it is clear that Austria is one of the few wine-producing countries that has seen any increase in export value at present.

“These significant differences in development in the individual countries show how important it is to diversify our export markets.”We will continue to pursue this strategy and to make every effort to support our winemakers. The primary opportunity to push exports this year will be at VieVinum, when we will be bringing more than 1,000 industry professionals from around the world to Austria again. Pushing exports also helps those winemakers who exclusively sell their wines in Austria as every wine exported takes some pressure off the domestic market.”

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