Vinexpo of Bordeaux is held every June and is one of the most important wine shows in the world. Each year, Vinexpo commissions a comprehensive study of world wine and spirits production, consumption and trade from the International Wine and Sprits Record of London. The latest findings were presented in Toronto at the end of January.
31 Billion Bottles Drunk
In 2007 the world consumed wine at the rate of around 58,000 bottles per second. The rate of growth in wine consumption has also been rising - huge countries like Russia and China, where wine drinking has not been a tradition, are jumping on the wine bandwagon. Both are now in the top ten wine consuming countries and forecasts are for more growth to come.
There has also been growth in consumption in almost every single country in the world. In fact, only six countries saw falls in consumption, and each of those have very high consumption levels and are considered "mature" markets: Austria, Argentina, France, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
Italy nudged France out of two key number one spots: total wine consumption and total wine exports by volume. France still holds on to number one exporter by value, selling over $9 billion worth of wine. The Americans spend the most money on wine (over $22 billion, only about a quarter of which is imported). In another surprise fact, the British have spent more on wine than the French since 2005. Some promoters of Canadian wines are miffed that imports make up over 80% of wines sold here, but pity the poor English winemaker: 99.8% of wine consumed in Britain is imported. The UK has also just become the world's leading market for imported wines, beating out historic leader Germany.
Canada ranks sixth as a wine importer and is also among the fastest growing major markets, with imports up 32% since 2003. There are, however, some variations in preferences between Canadians and the rest of the world - we're much more into reds and Canadians are just not that into rose:
| Red | White | Rose | |
| Canada | 61.4% | 35.4% | 3.2% |
| World | 51.7% | 39.3% | 9.0% |
Even as our wine consumption grew considerably between 2003 and 2007, Canadian wine production actually declined from 6.1 million cases to 5.8 million cases. Those deadly Ontario winters of 2003 and 2004 clearly took a toll.
To put Canadian production in perspective, our winemakers can supply about 15% percent of Canada's annual wine needs. If the world suddenly had to rely exclusively on Canadian wine, the whole year's production would be gone in 18 hours.
Source: IWSR, London; Vinexpo, Bordeaux
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