2021 harvest report in Europe (with a focus on Spain)

Wine production continued to fall in the 2021 harvest in the European Union for the third year in a row, particularly affecting the three major producing countries of Spain, France and Italy, with falls of up to 14%. These three countries represent 45% of world wine production and 70% of the European Union.

For the other EU countries, the harvest volume is slightly higher than in 2020, driven by Germany, Portugal, Romania and Hungary.This continues the trend of the last three years; mainly due to unfavourable weather conditions and late frosts. The O.I.V.V. expected a low volume of production in the European Union, especially in Spain, Italy and France.

Overall, there is a general minus of 22 million hectoliters compared to the 2020 vintage.At the same time, Spain has risen to first place as a world exporter, ousting France, despite the 14% decrease in volume compared to the 2020 vintage. Spain ranks second in the world ranking for wine production in 2021, with a volume of 38-39 million hectoliters.

According to the Spanish Wine Confederation, Spain has typically been the third largest producer in the world, the largest area under vines in the world at 13% of the total acreage and a leader in organic vineyards. Broken down by category, 14.7 million hl in the range of wines were wines with a D.O. (41%), 8.5 million hls for table wines (24%), 7.8 million hls for wines with grape variety information (22%) and 4.8 million hls for wines with IGP (13%). As for exports, they continue at a “good pace” as Spain sold 19.5 million hl abroad in the first ten months of 2021 (latest available data). This corresponds to an 18.3% increase in volume compared to January-October 2020 with sales of more than 2.37 billion euros or 11.5% more.