SPANISH WINE IN NUMBERS

Friday November 27th, 2020

Spain is the first wine producer by surface of the world, according to the OIV, with vineyards that cover more than 1M hectares of the country. Let´s think that the Europe Union has a surface close to 3,3M, and that all over the world the vineyard surface is around 7,5M hectares.

As a curiosity, it has to be said that even being the most extensive vineyard surface, it is not the first in production volume, but the third one. Spain produces 37M hectoliters from 270M produced around the world. From these, more than a half are produced inside the EU, with almost 166M hectoliters.

Based in consumption, Spain goes even down below in the ranking, with a very low consumption per capita, and in terms of total consumption ranks the eighth position with 10M hectoliters (less than a third of the country production), that, compared with the 240M hectoliters consumed around the world and the 27M of France, it gives an idea of what is actually the reality indoors.

In view of the results, we see that much of the wine Spain produces is exported overseas, so much it is that Spain is the first exporter in terms of volume, and the third in value.

The wine industry in Spain is composed by 4,000 wineries. The Top 10 as for number of wineries by D.O.’s is the next:

  • O. Ca Rioja 797
  • O. Cava 402
  • O. Ribera del Duero 307
  • O. La Mancha 252
  • O. Cataluña 211
  • O. Rías Baixas 179
  • O. Penedés 178
  • O. Ribeiro 109
  • O. Navarra 104
  • O. Priorat 101

The variety of the wine sector in Spain derives not only in the big number of producers, but in the great grape variety diversity registered. Although, the 80% of the production is elaborated with just 20 varieties. Spain is a country rich in soils, climates, and its cultives extend through almost the whole country , dividing it in 14 Wines of Pago, 2 D.O. Calificada (D.O. Rioja & D.O. Priorat), 69 Denominaciones de Origen and 41 areas with Indicación Geográfica Protegida.

The distribution of white and red wine (and rosé) in Spain is almost 50%.