lows

Almost seven decades. This is what you have to go back in the world wine chronicle to find a year in which the world consumed less wine than it drank in 2025. This is at least shown the balance which has just been published by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), an organization that boasts of bringing together 51 countries that account for 88% of the world’s wine production and that now cannot but note a trend that the sector has been viewing with suspicion for some time: the world seems less and less interested in the wineries. Your data is revealing. “Adapting to challenges”. Although corporate language usually avoids fatalism, the truth is that the OIV’s latest annual report does not leave much room for optimism. Its CEO, John Barker, claims that in recent years the wine sector “has been adapting to the constant climatic, economic and social challenges”, but the reality is that the global ‘photo’ of 2025 is not good. Consumption fell worldwide until reaching unseen lows for decades and things were not much better in world trade, where exports also suffered in both volume and value. Production did improve, although in a very discreet way and insufficient to approach the average that the sector has managed so far this century. Not only that. In general, today there are many fewer hectares cultivated with vineyards in the world than 25 years ago. Has consumption dropped that much? It seems that way if we trust the OIV, which estimates that in 2025 global wine consumption will amount to 208 million hectoliters. It may seem like a large sum, but it marks a drop of 2.7% with respect to 2024 and aggravates the ‘puncture’ that the sector has been registering since 2018, widening the collapse to reach 14%. The tables of the OIV show that never before has so little wine been drunk on the planet since (at least) 2000. And that is only what their latest balance shows. The EFE agency has reviewed the historical archive of the organization and assures that in 2025 consumption plummeted to the lows of 1957. Searching for the causes. As is usually the case, this ‘puncture’ is not explained by a single factor. Inflationary pressures, geopolitical tensions, interruptions in trade due to causes beyond the control of the sector or, if we go back to 2020, the effect of the pandemic come into play. In the cocktail however there is another ingredient taken by the OIV itself: “Changes in social habits and at a generational level” that directly affect consumer behavior, a trend that is seen above all among the young. If we focus on the world map The organization focuses above all on what is happening in three large markets. The first is China, where “the greatest contraction” is noted, with the loss of about two million hectoliters per year since 2018. As a reference, if in 2020 its consumption was estimated at 12.4 million, last year it was already around 4.8. The union has also noted a sustained decline in the French market and a “marked slowdown” in the US, which contracted 4.3% in 2025. The picture is not exactly good in the EU, which although it accounts for a large part of world consumption, reduced it by 3.1%. Global data 2020 2022 2025 Cultivated area (thousands of hectares) 7,388 7,236 7,034 Wine produced (Millions of hectoliters) 264 265 227 Wine Consumed (Millions of hectoliters) 232 228 208 A business less business. Another indicator in low hours is exports. Last year fell 4.7% in terms of volume, which extends the trend observed in the market since 2022. If we talk about hard dollars (value), the puncture was even greater: world exports moved 33.8 billion euros6.7% less than in 2024. Once again, these percentages are explained by a sum of factors that include fluctuations in demand, prices and “tariff uncertainty”; but also something much more basic: less is exported because fewer vines are planted and less wine is harvested. The footprint in fields and wineries. As for the first (the area with vineyards), in 2025 contracted 0.8% until it reaches seven million hectares. “It represents the sixth consecutive year of contraction,” remember the OIV. “This confirms a continuing adjustment in the global wine sector, driven by the clearing of vineyards in several major vine-producing countries in both hemispheres.” This trend helps to understand the decline that wine production has experienced, which although it rose a slight 0.6% last year, moving away from the historical minimum of 2024, is still 9.4% below the average for the last five years. The data is not explained solely by the loss of hectares. The weather also comes into play. Is everything negative? No. The OIV too has detected markets in which the trend is clearly positive, such as Portugal or Brazil, which has significantly expanded the area dedicated to vineyards and has also increased its production. Furthermore, although exports may have faltered in the last year, the organization recalls that the value of world trade remains at “significantly higher levels” than those recorded before the pandemic. A certain balance is also appreciated from the sector. “A third consecutive year of relatively low global production means that production and consumption are generally in balance, minimizing the impact of lower consumption on stock levels,” clarify from the OIV before remembering that their merchandise is not only destined for wineries where it is bottled and sold as wine. Every year around 30 million hectoliters are reserved for industrial uses, such as distillation or the production of vinegar, wine derivatives and spirits. Images | Svetlana Gumerova (Unsplash) and OIV In Xataka | The European Union believes it has a solution for the decline of wine in Spain: plucking the “green” grapes in La Rioja