The global wine industry is in decline. In 2024 global wine production fell to its lowest level since 1961 because of heavy rain, frosts and droughts. But the deeper problem is demand: wine is the only big alcohol category that has declined across all price brackets, according to IWSR, a drinks-data firm. Sales of cheap supermarket wine are expected to continue to drop by 2% a year, and at the top end, the growth of fine wines is slower than that of beers and spirits.
The EU is the world's largest producer, consumer and exporter of wine. In December 2024 the bloc reached a preliminary agreement to use EU funds to uproot grapevines in order to reduce its wine glut.
The French drink about half as much wine as they did in the 1970s; Americans and Canadians also drink less. In Britain wine consumption per person has fallen by 14% since 2000, though the fall in revenue is less pronounced as people switch to more expensive wines. In China, which a decade ago was a major source of growth in the market, wine consumption has since slumped.
Generation Z, those born after 1997, drink differently from their elders, increasingly seeking out quality and novelty, such as sake from Japan or craft beers. They are also less likely than older people to sit down for the drawn-out, communal meals where wine once flowed.
Wine's decline reflects broader social change: the fraying of communal eating and a rise in solitary living. Wine has a special status over other tipples that is almost as old as recorded history; the ancient Greeks and Romans prized it, and the Bible is filled with references to it. In the 20th century, as incomes rose and trade expanded, wine became the drink of the new middle class and consumption boomed, says Rod Phillips, a wine historian.
The rise of consultant oenologists—led by Michel Rolland, widely regarded as the world's first "flying winemaker"—reshaped modern winemaking from the 1970s onwards. Rolland and the American critic Robert Parker, whose 100-point rating scale became an industry standard, jointly pushed tastes toward ripe, plush, fruit-forward reds aged in new oak. Critics charged that the result was a homogenisation of wine styles across regions. The 2004 documentary "Mondovino" explored the tension between globalised, consultant-driven production and traditional, terroir-focused winemaking.
On May 24th 1976 Steven Spurrier, an English wine merchant, hosted a blind tasting in Paris in which a red and a white from Napa Valley (Stag's Leap and Chateau Montelena, both 1973) ranked above celebrated names such as Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion. One French wine official later called the tasting "our Waterloo". The volume of exported bottles of American wine more than quintupled between 1975 and 1980. The two winning bottles are at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The 1973 vintages were released at $6 and $6.50 (around $35-38 in today's dollars); now single bottles cost thousands. The "World Atlas of Wine" (1971) devoted 73 pages to French wine and just eight to Californian. Marchesi Antinori, an Italian firm, acquired sole ownership of Stag's Leap in 2023.
Bordeaux's reds are based on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The en primeur system facilitates pre-orders for new vintages, but the price of older vintages is now comparable to or below new releases, deterring early buyers. France and the EU have committed around €250m to vine-uprooting. Burgundy, about a third of Bordeaux's size and producing Pinot Noir reds and Chardonnay whites, has fared best; on the Liv-ex wine exchange, Burgundy's share of sales rose to around 23%, more than triple a decade earlier. After Xi Jinping denounced lavish gifts, Chinese demand for Bordeaux prestige labels sputtered. Sales of American wine in Canada—Napa's most important international market—fell by nearly 80% in 2025, after most provinces banned American alcohol in retaliation for tariffs.
The global market for wine in small cans was worth $113m in 2024. Though still dwarfed by the traditional market, it is projected to grow by more than 11% annually over the next five years.
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