Friday 4 February 2011

Wine production

The table below - which comes from an entry by Elliott R. Morss at the Wine and Food Economics blog - provides the total wine production by country for 2008. Note just how little wine New Zealand does produce, but as Morss notes in his article, "New Zealand does well in export markets for how much it produces."

Wine Production
2008 2004-08 2008
Country (milhectltrs.) % Change per hectare
Italy 46,900 -6% 56
France 42,950 -25% 50
Spain 34,850 -19% 30
USA 20,550 2% 50
Argentina 14,680 -5% 65
China 13,005 17% 26
Australia 11,700 -20% 68
Germany 10,400 4% 102
South Africa 9,890 7% 75
Chile 7,860 25% 40
Romania 6,300 2% 31
Portugal 5,400 -28% 22
Greece 3,750 -12% 32
Brazil 3,500 -11% 35
Hungary 3,400 -22% 47
Austria 2,400 -12% 47
Bulgaria 1,800 -8% 19
New Zealand 1,700 43% 49

Italy, France and Spain are the big boys on the block. The size of Chinese production surprised me but Morss points out its mainly for local consumption. The growth in New Zealand's production over the 2004-8 period is pretty amazing and may help explain the current wine glut.

1 comment:

Bernard Darnton said...

A billion people can't be wrong.

I once looked at the idea of importing wine in India but the combination of a surprisingly vibrant local industry (for somewhere with such atrocious growing conditions) and staggering import duties knocked that jaunt on the head.