Wine Industry in Figures – The World and Georgia
In 2018, winemakers bottled 292.3 million hectoliters, or 39 billion bottles of wine. According to the International Organization of Wine and Vine (OIV), Italy ranks first among the world top 5 wine production countries.
On the Apennine Peninsula, 310,000 companies and 46,000 winemakers have engaged in winemaking, and they bottled 54.8 million hectoliters of wine in 2018, 19% of the world’s wine production. French winemakers have produced 49.1 million hectoliters of wine (17% in global wine production). Spain ranks third, with 44.4 million hectoliters (15%). The USA ranks fourth with 23.9 million hectoliters (8%), and Argentina is the fifth greatest winemaking country with 14.5 million hectoliters (5%). These countries are top wine exporters, too, but France is the leader in terms of revenues from wine exports.
In 2018, France sold 9.3 billion USD wines, Italy – 6.1 billion USD, Spain – 2.9 billion USD, Australia – 1.8 billion USD, Chile – 1.7 billion USD.
On the whole, wine worth 31.3 billion USD were sold worldwide in 2018. According to OIV, the highest rate of wine consumption was recorded in the USA – 33 million hectoliters. France ranks second in terms of wine consumption, with 26.8 million hectoliters.
It is interesting that Portugal is a leading country in terms of wine consumption per capita. One Portuguese person drinks 62.2 liters of wine a year on average. The French rank second, with 50.2 liters. The Italian rank third, with 43.6 liters.
As for the space of vineyards worldwide - according to the FAO reports, across the world, vineyards cover 7.4-million-hectares of space.
The largest area of vineyards is recorded in Spain. The total space of vineyards in Spain make up 969,000 hectares. China ranks second, with 875,000 hectares. France comes third, with 789,000 hectares. Italy is fourth, with 702,000 hectares, and Turkey is fifth with 448 000 hectares.
It is interesting that such a small country as Moldova ranks 15th in terms of vineyard space (147,000 hectares), and ranks ahead of Australia, Russia, Greece, Brazil, Hungary, Bulgaria and Mexico. As for wine production, Moldova ranks 19th with 1.9 million hectoliter of annual production.
As for wine importers, Germany tops the list with 15.5 million hectoliters. Great Britain comes second, with 13.3 million hectoliters. The USA ranks third, with 11.5 million hectoliters. France comes fourth, with 6.9 million hectoliters. China ranks fifth, with 6.2 million hectoliters of wine imports.
An interesting fact is that the USA recorded the highest expenses on wine. Experts have ascertained that this country places a focus on the import of expensive wines.
As for Georgia, in 2018, Georgia exported 86.2 million bottles of wine to 53 countries and this is a record figure over the past 30 years. The year on year growth made up 13%, compared to 2017. The total value of the 2018 wine exports amounted to 203 million USD. In 2018, Georgia exported wines to the following markets: Russia (53,682,627 bottles), Ukraine (10,687,835 bottles), China (6,951,019 bottles), Kazakhstan (3,599,143 bottles), Poland (3,508,122 bottles), Latvia (1,711,078 bottles ), Belarus (1,606,002 bottles), Estonia (581,190 bottles), Lithuania (488,154 bottles) and Germany (483,791 bottles). Last year, wine exports were carried out by 284 companies, up 34 companies compared to 2017.
In January-May 2019, Georgia exported 33.6 million bottles of wine to 39 countries, up 6% compared to the same period of 2018. The total value of wine exports in the reporting period exceeded 87 million USD, up 16% year on year.
As compared to Georgia, modest figures are reported from Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 2018, Armenia sold 2 503.3 thousand liters of wine, worth 9.4 million USD. 79% of Armenian wines are exported to the Russian Federation. According to the official statistics, exports of Armenian wine to Russia declined by 14%. Specialists assert that the slowdown is caused by the low competitive capacity of Armenia wines. Almost the same indicators are reported from Azerbaijan. Namely, in 2018, the wine exports of Azerbaijan made up 8 million USD. Russia emerged as a key exports market in this case too – 85% of Azerbaijani wines were exported to Russia. It is worth noting that in 2018, Azerbaijan produced only 14 million bottles of wine.