Recent patterns in world vineyard area, wine production and wine consumption

The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) recently released its annual world industry summary: State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024. There are always parts of it that seem of particular interest, and I will look at three of these here.

Let’s start with recent changes in the world’s vineyard surface area, which are shown in the first graph (taken from the report).

As you can see, this has been decreasing for quite some time, from a high in 2003. It is currently c. 90% of its recent high. (Note that the OIV graphs never have zero as their bottom axis, which looks somewhat misleading to me.) As has been repeatedly noted in the wine-industry literature, vineyard area is much larger than can be supported by the current wine consumption, and so the decrease in area will presumably continue for quite some time yet.

Obviously, wine production is related to vineyard surface area. However, production has not shown a similar continuous decline, as illustrated in the next graph (taken from the report).

The graph shows that, since 2003, global wine production has varied up and down around an average of c. 270 mhl (million hectoliters). This sounds like a classic case of over-production (the same amount of wine coming from a decreasing area). This has lead to a dramatic decrease in production over the past couple of years, so that 2024 production was only c. 75% of the 2018 peak (and that peak was the same as for 2003).

Note also that the 2022 production was c. 90% of the 2003 high, as would be expected from the decreasing vineyard surface area; so, we need to look for another cause of the decline since 2022. The most obvious place to look for this would be wine consumption, as illustrated in the next graph (taken from the report).

This shows that the recent high-point for consumption was during the decade from 2007 to 2017, when it varied around 245 mhl (million hectoliters). Since then, it has been all downhill, so that the 2024 level was c. 90% of the 2017 high.

More importantly, there has been a dramatic decrease in consumption since 2021. So, the decrease by the producers has clearly been a response to the behaviour of the consumers. Notably, it has been reported that global wine consumption is back to 1961 levels, which should be a wake-up call for the industry.

We can also consider which countries have been contributing to these patterns. Here, 51% of the world vineyard area lies in just five countries: Spain, France, China, Italy and Turkey (in decreasing order). So, these are the ones that will be most affected by the decline in the wine industry.

The pattern for production as reported by the OIV excludes juices and musts, and so wine production does not follow the vineyard area pattern. Here, 58% of the world wine production comes from just four countries: Italy, France, Spain and the USA (in decreasing order).

Wine consumption, on the other hand, is somewhat different. Here, 51% of wine consumption occurs in five countries: the USA, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. This pattern is obviously related to population size. However, France and Italy do produce a lot of wine because their people drink a lot of it. The same cannot be said of the USA, Germany and the UK, which need to import a lot of the stuff.

This importation fact is currently riling the President of the USA, who wants to tax the imported booze even more than it has been in the past (How American alcohol importers are adapting to the tariff rollercoaster). Indeed, in the above graph we can look at US wine consumption over the past century or so (from: the Wine Institute). There was a notable dip during the second half of the 1980s, but otherwise it has continued upwards until 2022 (and 2023 also continued downwards — not shown).

Apparently, the President’s idea is that the USA can produce all of its own wine needs. This seems unlikely, given recent patterns in grape crush in California, as shown in the next graph (from: Lightest crop in 20 years). The issue here is whether the crush should be increased or decreased for the good of the California wine business (How bad is wine’s oversupply problem?).

On a different note, China is an interesting part of the global wine industry, and potentially an important one given its population size (2025: 17% of the world total). Here, both production and consumption have decreased from a peak in c. 2012–2013, as shown in the next graph (from: What’s happened to the wine market in China?).

Indeed, China’s share of world wine production by volume was 5.5% in 2012 but was 0.8% in 2022; and its share of world wine consumption was 7.5% in 2012 but was 2.4% in 2022. These are pretty serious drops, which the wine industry needs to take note of. Moreover, wine’s share of China’s alcohol consumption was 4.6% in 2012 but was only 1.5% in 2022 (grain-based drinks dominate, including beer).

Clearly, the wine industry will need to look to other populous countries, like India (Which wine regions are finding success in India, and why?). The USA apparently need not look anywhere, just at the moment (How America ruined its enviable position in global drinks culture).

So, there you have it. Things are on the downward path in the world wine industry. This is not news to you, but now I have put some numbers on it.

The most valuable wine brands over recent years

Things are a bit unsettled in the global wine world at the moment, for reasons of which you are presumably well aware. Instead of dealing with that, I thought that it might be more interesting to look at the value of the world’s most valuable wine companies / brands over the past few years. Some are up, some are down, and some are holding ground. Which are which?

The most recent data for wine brands come from Brand Finance for 2024. This company claims to have “the world’s largest database of brand valuations, with over 5,000 new valuations each year, supported by our own original consumer equity research.”

You can peruse a list of the wine data at VinePair for: The world’s 10 most valuable wine and champagne brands (2024). Given that title, it should surprise no-one that the four most valuable brands for 2024 are all from Champagne: Moët & Chandon, Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, and Dom Pérignon. Note that this refers only to individual brands, not to the conglomerates that own many of them (eg. Constellation, Pernod Ricard).

For our purposes here, though, we want to compare these 2024 data to the data for 2023. This I have done in the first graph. Each company is represented by a labeled dot — its value in 2023 is shown horizontally (in millions of $) and its value in 2024 vertically.

Clearly, the same four Champagne brands were at or near the top of the 2023 list as well. This should surprise no-one either, I guess, because France, as it often does with wine, leads the way.

More interestingly, there are only two large changes in value between the two years: Changyu has dropped significantly (second place to fifth place), and Yellow Tail has risen significantly (ninth place to seventh place).

Changyu is China’s century-old wine legend. Its drop in value has been noted in the media (Changyu brand value plummets 33% in a year):

This decline is likely due to the increasing competition from both domestic and international wine brands entering the Chinese market, which has put pressure on Changyu’s market position. Combined with weak financial performance over the past year, these factors have led to a decrease in Changyu’s brand value.

Yellow Tail, on the other hand, has become an Australian legend, developed by Casella Wines. The rapid worldwide success of this brand has been listed as a classic case study of what is referred to as a Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Oceans are uncontested marketplaces; and it is claimed that the Casella brothers deliberately set out to make their own blue ocean: a fun and non-traditional wine that is easy to drink for everyone (Creating value on the vine). Indeed, it has subsequently been noted that retailers should: Range wines by colour rather than country of origin, which is another example of a consumer-friendly approach to wine retail. (That is, these days consumers think about wine from a style perspective.)

We should also look at the most valuable wine brands over several years. We can look at the 2021—2024 data in the second graph. We should note that Penfolds, Yellow Tail and Jacob’s Creek do not appear in the Top 10 for 2021 (Barefoot, Martini, and Concha y Toro appear, instead). Also, Beringer does not appear in the Top 10 for 2022 — its value for 2021 (not shown in the graph) was $300 million.

Note the rapid rise for Penfolds in 2023, and for Yellow Tail in 2024. Lindeman’s has had an erratic performance, up and down, as has Changyu. The wine industry is not always a static place to be, although the other six brands have been fairly steady through time.

Part of the problem here, of course, is global wine production (Champagne sales are slumping):

According to the latest macro analysis from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), an intergovernmental body providing guidance to the wine and grape-growing industry, overall global wine production is now at its lowest point since the turn of the millennium ... the overarching trend for the past 25 years is a clear line sloping downward. Perhaps more menacingly, global wine consumption itself has reached its lowest point since 1996, according to OIV estimates.

In concluding on a happier note, I should remind you that the commercial value of a brand is not its only value. For example, the first large winery complex that I ever visited, in my late teens, was Seppeltsfield, established in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in 1851 by the Seppelt family. What is equally notable is that the wine my wife and I had with our barbecue the other day was Seppeltsfield Shiraz 2019 (and very nice it was, too). Now that (nearly 5 decades) is continuous value for you!

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

 I noted in my previous post (More medical results suggesting that wines are usually safe to drink) that it is often difficult for drinkers to estimate their own intake. This is because even Small changes in wine alcohols can make a big difference. I presented a table showing the blood alcohol concentration for an average 130-pound woman who consumes two 5-ounce glasses of wine over 1.5 hours. It looked like this:

Alcohol     Blood alcohol
content     concentration
  12%          0.065%
  13%          0.073%
  14%          0.081%
  15%          0.088%

So, let’s look at how it gets like this. Alcohol enters your stomach as its first stop. Here, if you produce enzymes known as alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) then these break down some of the alcohol, thus preventing it from entering your bloodstream. Sadly, studies have shown that women tend to have lower levels of ADH than men; and people who drink regularly have lower ADH levels than people who rarely or never drink (Cleveland Clinic).

From the stomach the alcohol goes into the small intestine, where it is transferred to your bloodstream. This is when you notice it. The liver then picks up the alcohol from the blood, and starts to convert it to acetaldehhyde and then acetate, using ADH, ALDH, cytochrome P450 (CYP2E1) and catalase (Overview: how is alcohol metabolized by the body?) — see the diagram if you want the details. About 90% is processed by the liver, with the rest coming out via your kidneys (to your urine), lungs (to the air) and skin.

Alcohol typically stays in your system for about 1 hour per standard drink consumed. One standard drink is about 14 grams of ethanol (ie. alcohol), the amount found in (Cleveland Clinic):

• 12 ounces of regular beer with 5% ethanol (about one can of beer)
• 5 ounces of wine with 12% ethanol (about one glass of wine)
• 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (80 proof) with 40% ethanol (about one shot).

Alcohol takes around 60—90 minutes to reach peak levels in your blood, before the body begins breaking it down. The half-life of alcohol (how long it takes for your body to get rid of half of it) is 4—5 hours. However, you need about 5 half-lives to get rid of alcohol completely — so, it takes about 25 hours for your body to get clear all of the alcohol.

Furthermore, alcohol can be detected:

• in blood for 6 to 12 hours,
• in breath and saliva for 12 to 24 hours,
• in urine for 12 to 24 hours (ethanol test), but up to 80 (EtG test) to 130 hours (5.5 days), and
• in hair for up to 90 days.

There is even a biomarker called Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) that reflects alcohol intake, and can be detected in urine up to 14 days.

The exact duration of alcohol detection varies based on characteristics of your body like:

• body weight — the less you weigh then the less water you have in your body; and since alcohol goes into the water in your blood, if you have less water then your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) will be higher,
• metabolism — some health conditions can make it harder for your body to process alcohol,
• medications — prescription medicines and over-the-counter medications can have interactions with alcohol,
• age — the speed of alcohol processing slows down as we get older,
• gender — women take longer to process alcohol than men (see above),
• your ancestry — we all have different genes, which may have an effect on alcohol processing, and
• the amount of alcohol consumed.

It is usually better to consume alcohol with food. However, food changes how your body processes alcohol but not how fast it can do it (Cleveland Clinic). Food makes the alcohol hang on in the stomach for a while, and your stomach then gets time to break down some of the alcohol before it moves into the small intestine, and thus into the bloodstream.

Caffeine is sometimes recommended, as it is a stimulant, which can perk you up and make you feel less intoxicated (Cleveland Clinic). However, you can then lose track of how much you’ve had to drink; and the caffeine won’t clear the alcohol from your system any faster.

It is also important to consider the effect on your brain of drinking too much. Moderate drinkers have been seen as those who have seven or fewer drinks per week, while heavy drinkers have had eight or more drinks per week. The latter can have problems (Eight or more drinks per week linked to signs of injury in the brain).

As a final aside, there is also a thing known as “auto brewery syndrome” (Man with rare condition that turns carbs into alcohol in his stomach). Here, your body turns sugary and starchy foods (ie. carbohydrates) into alcohol in your stomach, via endogenous ethanol fermentation (a.k.a. gut fermentation syndrome). So, people with this condition can get drunk simply by eating a slice of cake. This syndrome has appeared in TV episodes of both Chicago Med and Doc Martin.

More medical results suggesting that wines are usually safe to drink

People seem to be becoming more mindful of their alcohol intake for health reasons. However, I have recently noted medical evidence that wine is usually safe to drink with regard to both cancer and heart disease, which are currently the two major causes of death in the Western world.

There are, however, many other health issues that we may encounter, and it is interesting to check out whether wine is troublesome there, as well. Indeed, commentators other than WHO (who have focused on cancer) have emphasized some of these alternative medical issues. Here, I will look at these other issues, noting that they are not necessarily a big deal, either.

At first, however, I will note that Risky drinkers underestimate their own alcohol consumption. Indeed, it is often difficult even for non-risky drinkers to estimate their own intake. This is because even Small changes in wine alcohols can make a big difference. The table below shows the blood alcohol concentration for an average 130-pound woman who consumes two 5-ounce glasses of wine over 1.5 hours. When I was a teenager in Australia, the slogan was “under .05 or under arrest”, as far as driving a car was concerned.

Alcohol     Blood alcohol
content     concentration
  12%          0.065%
  13%          0.073%
  14%          0.081%
  15%          0.088%

So, now being mindful of the volume of alcohol intake, we might start by looking at what is called All-Cause Mortality. In this regard, we can consider Is drinking wine in moderation good for health or not? We can quote from this science report:

Drinking alcoholic beverages is associated with various health effects in the population ... All these effects seem primarily to be associated with the amount of alcohol consumed; the role of the different alcoholic beverages, and of their minor components, in this regard is in fact not clearly defined ... the association with all-cause mortality is complex, and J-shaped, with a consumption window theoretically associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality, up to 25 g alcohol per day. However, this issue is the subject of intense scientific debate.

So, that does not really help us in much of a practical way. So, let's move on, in particular, to red wine itself. Here, we get information directly from medical experiments: Health effects of red wine consumption: a narrative review of an issue that still deserves debate. To quote from this comprehensive review of the recent medical literature (in 2023):

This review evaluated randomised controlled trials (RCTs), examining the recent literature on the correlations between acute and chronic RW [red wine] consumption and health. All RCTs published in English on PubMed from 1 January 2000 to 28 February 2023 were evaluated. Ninety-one RCTs were included in this review, seven of which had a duration of more than six months. We assessed the effect of RW on: (1) antioxidant status, (2) cardiovascular function, (3) coagulation pathway and platelet function, (4) endothelial function and arterial stiffness, (5) hypertension, (6) immune function and inflammation status, (7) lipid profile and homocysteine levels, (8) body composition, type 2 diabetes and glucose metabolism, and (9) gut microbiota and the gastrointestinal tract. RW consumption mostly results in improvements in antioxidant status, thrombosis and inflammation markers, lipid profile, and gut microbiota, with conflicting results on hypertension and cardiac function. Notably, beneficial effects were observed on oxidative stress, inflammation, and nephropathy markers, with a modest decrease in CVD [cardio-vascular disease] risk in five out of seven studies that evaluated the effect of RW consumption.

So, that sounds very promising. Diet is also of importance (Research shows wine enhances the impact of the Mediterranean diet):

This year [2024], for the seventh year running, the Mediterranean diet was ranked the healthiest in the world by US News & World Report ... Professor Ramon Estruch: “but if you put moderate drinking, especially wine, under the umbrella of the Mediterranean diet, the health effect is much higher. And if you practise exercise and so on, the effect is much better. But I think that the highest power of these is diet.” Indeed, the importance of diet has been emphasized elsewhere. For example, when studying Alcohol consumption patterns and mortality among older adults with health-related or socioeconomic risk factors, it was noted that: “Wine preference and drinking only with meals were associated with attenuating the excess mortality associated with alcohol consumption.”

Furthermore, red wine with the food can lower blood sugar faster, especially in combination with Mediterranean food (Vin, snus och ingen frukost? Här är professorns råd som vänder upp och ner på hälsomyterna [in Swedish]).

Regarding diet and sugar, diabetes itself is often of concern. However, it has been noted in a recent experiment (Alcohol intake, drinking pattern, and risk of Type 2 Diabetes in three prospective cohorts of U.S. women and men) that: “Light to moderate alcohol consumption, especially regular light drinking, was associated with a lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes in both men and women.” A much earlier (2009) summary of this pattern is illustrated in the graph above, with females at the top and males below (Alcohol as a risk factor for Type 2 Diabetes).

If you want to read another summary of potential issues then The Drinks Business (The scientific studies showing the health benefits of wine) has this overview:

Here, we look back through the years at the drinks business, and provide a comprehensive overview of the health benefits associated with wine from scientific studies that we have covered in the past several decades.

As I have noted before: There are NO scientific experiments saying: don’t drink alcohol. Much of the current “scientific” anti-alcohol noise comes from Tim Stockwell, as I explicitly discussed in that post, and his associated new-Prohibitionist organization Movendi International (aka the International Organisation of Good Templars). Felicity Carter provides an alternative perspective on this issue (The rise of anti-alcohol messaging and ‘neo-prohibitionism’). In the meantime, stick to wine (as opposed to other alcohols) and science says that you will be quite well off.