Top ten wine producing countries ranked in million tonnes between 1961 - 2018

Stunning. I would have put the US certainly higher than Algeria and Russia! Shows how little I know…

Interesting how geo-political wine is to me.

Go to the end, I don’t wanna give away the ending, but it changes! [cheers.gif]

So russia falls off the map… but otherwise it’s italy/france/spain wire to wire for the top 3?

An interesting fact I read last week which you would not guess from that chart, is that more Washington State wine is sold in the US than French wine.

Surprised Algeria still reigns so high. Being a Muslim country, how much of that wine actually gets drunk ‘in-country’ compared to what gets exported or ‘Hermitaged’?

So russia falls off the map… but otherwise it’s italy/france/spain wire to wire for the top 3?

Kind of.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has the top ten as:

  • Italy
    Spain
    France
    the US
    China
    Argentina
    Chile
    Australia
    S. Africa
    Germany

China has been moving up rapidly, but since China does not allow independent verification, their numbers are not necessarily accurate. However, they are planting more vineyards and as with everything, the government is behind it, so they’ll become even larger. Also, India isn’t on the list but they’re investing a lot.

The USSR fell off the list because until 1991, “the USSR” included all the nations under the communists jackboots in Russia. And their production was mostly dreck, made to satisfy the production quotas of the central planners. When that broke up, Georgia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Slovakia entered the list independently.

Spain too still makes a lot of crap, but they’ve been improving by leaps and bounds. In the 1950s and 60s the bulk of their wine was distilled into cheap brandy, so it’s not like all of the countries on the list are producing “fine” wine. They’re just producing wine. I would look to see production in Chile drop over the next couple of years too.

I also assumed that the USSR’s relative strength in that map was due to large amounts of absolute trash being made, but why would the USSR’s production figures have included Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or Yugoslavia? Those were all separate countries, just Soviet “affiliates,” right? Obviously Georgia would have been included. If you’re correct I assume that explains it, but if not, I was wondering how they reached those numbers. Aside from Georgia, how many former Soviet republics had environments even moderately suited to wine production?

Also interesting that Algeria was so strong and dropped off so precipitously. Religious issues maybe? Loss of interest from Europe due to increased domestic productions?

Greg,

AFAIK, “the USSR” never included Hungary, what was then Czechoslovakia, or Slovenia. Yes, they were controlled by the USSR (not exactly Russia, but close enough) but I do not believe that the production of those countries was included in USSR statistics. Also, you don’t mention Ukraine, which was part of the USSR and has a significant industry. I don’t know if your name is indicative of your ancestry, but Crimea has always been an important part of Ukraine wine production, with Massandra having a long history. I’m curious to hear your comments.

Also, why do you think wine production in Chile will drop? There’s some political turmoil there right now, but AFAIK their industry is healthy. Obviously that industry is pretty dependent on export, as production is high and population pretty low, but if there are clouds on the horizon, I’d like to know what you are seeing.

Thanks and regards,

Dan Kravitz

Dan and Michael - you guys are right. I was just going by what my grandfather told me. He was a die-hard supporter. Although he was in East Germany, he considered it all part of the glorious Soviet empire. The countries in the USSR were:
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova / Moldavia
Russia
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan

Of those, Armenia and Georgia are considered the top wine-producers, and may be the world’s original wine producers.

The name is indeed indicative of my ancestry! It’s a nice story too.

The reason I think production in Chile will drop is because the political unrest is likely to affect their economy. A few years ago, although Argentina’s wine production was fine, their economy was so messed up that you couldn’t get containers for exports. In addition, the government figured that if you own a business, you were exploiting workers, so they established a wealth tax. Finally, they wouldn’t let you change foreign currency. You would sell your wine to the US, get paid in dollars, but had to change them through the government’s banks and they gave you pesos - when they got around to it. So people started cutting corners and looking for cheaper grapes. The people I knew kept their money out of the country if they could. I’m worried that something similar is going to happen to Chile. I sincerely hope I’m wrong - those people have been through a lot of grief in the past thirty years and don’t need more.

And don’t forget Moldova!

Fascinating.
In the early going interesting to watch Italy and France trading places.
And the rise of Spain and US. ( and China but that’s another issue).

This presumably includes all “wine”. Would be interesting to see a similar chart for ‘quality’ wine, ie that is at least drinkable. Yeah, definition needed. In some of those countries a good chunk of that is WINO.

PS. Could the OP put a note under video to encourage people to press play for the real story.

But Armenia is tiny. Ukraine and Georgia no doubt accounted for much of USSR production.

Up through ~1980 I think the Italian and French production figures often reflected weather. After Spain joined the EU in 1986, other factors came into play. Spanish wines cut deeply into the market for cheap French wines, both in France and in world markets. It was something of a crisis in the Midi (French farmers blockaded highways to prevent tanker trucks of Spanish wine from passing), and I think a lot of French vines went out of production.

Meanwhile, the quality of Italian wines was rising and they started displacing French wines abroad.

Interesting comment John. I think you’re right.

There was a comment somewhere here about Algeria too I think. I wonder how much Algerian wine wound up in bottles with other countries’ labels on. :grinning:

Are there any stats that indicate by country what percentage of wine is drinkable. Probably impossible to define, (queue the Meiomi jokes) maybe just simple as a retail price of at least $4 or $5. I believe a lot of wine produced does not always get bottled and goes to other uses)

I love these timeline graphs. Not to take anything away from it, but the unit of measure used has got to be an error, listed as ‘million tonnes’, and them one country alone produced 6,900,000 units? That would be 6.9 Million Million tonnes, or to say it plainly, 6.9 Trillion tonnes. That’s impossible, given that worldwide wine production was 293 million hectoliters in 2018 (per google), with one hectoliter weighing about 240 lbs. 9 hectoliters would be about 1 metric tonne, so only a little more than 30 million tonnes was produced in 2018.

While the unit of measure is wrong, I assume the relative amount are accurate.

Chuck - there are zillions and zillions of tons of wine produced!

John - you’re right about the vines going out of production and the chart should be reflecting the EU campaign to grub up so many vines just a few years ago. All that Carignan in France that produced loads of plonk. The people who did the blockades and overturned the trucks weren’t generally making high-end stuff.

There was a comment somewhere here about Algeria too I think. I wonder how much Algerian wine wound up in bottles with other countries’ labels on.

The story of Algeria is really interesting. The Phoenicians made wine there but there was virtually no wine production for probably a few centuries.

Then the French invaded in the early 1800s and they introduced a few vines. When phylloxera hit France in the late 1800s, the French went crazy planting vines in Algeria and within a few years it was one of the world’s largest producers and I think it may have been the largest exporter of wine in the world. Initially the French coped with the death of their own vines by importing wine from places like Italy and Spain, but they didn’t want to do that and they considered Algeria their property anyway, so Algerian wine was OK with them.

Don’t forget that after phylloxera Europe had a major depression and a world war. Just before those last two, France figured out the grafting thing and their home industry started to revive. The French producers who hadn’t gone to Algeria but who were now able to produce wine again started getting priced out by the cheaper imports. In true French fashion, they rioted and vandalized Algerian wine shipments and eventually got a law passed that required wine to be labeled with the place of origin. After another depression and world war, that became codified as the AOC system in 1935.

And of course, the imports kept coming in and all kinds of protectionist measures were introduced - things like limiting new plantings of vines, limits on production, etc. But the biggest event was that Algeria revolted and fought for independence in the late 1950s / early 1960s. Acheiving it more or less killed their industry.

First, the local wine drinkers and market were the French and Europeans who were living in Algeria. They got out fast after independence. Then the government, in true socialist fashion, nationalized industries, including the vineyards, and appointed good bureaucrats to run them. As is always the case, the bureaucrats didn’t know what they were doing and both production and quality went to hell. As part of the war settlement, France promised to keep buying lots of Algerian wine but a few more riots and protests put a stop to that. And for good measure, France passed a law that prohibited blending wine from another country into French wine.

Back during the cold war the Algerians were trying to set up a socialist government like the Soviets. Figuring the Soviets would drink anything that contained some alcohol, the Algerians made a deal to sell them millions of liters of wine. Apparently they should have studied market economics rather than socialist economics because they sold for such low prices that their vineyards mostly went out of business.

They still make wine and actually have a few appellations. Those are all in the north off the sea. I’ve only had one Algerian wine and it wasn’t any good. The production is still managed by the government as far as I know. A French guy told me that the French went over, created an industry, left it to the Algerians, and the Algerians killed it. I kind of think that’s too simple. The Algerians never asked the French to come over and create an industry that they had no interest in to produce a product that they didn’t want. But it’s an interesting story anyhow.

Great history Greg, thank you!

It’s interesting that indeed a lot of the industrial vines have been pulled up but at the same time plantings of quality wines have increased with expanded appellations such as Chablis.

Greg - Reading your delightful historical note, I was wondering why Morocco doesn’t figure in the phylloxera-aftermath history. It produces some quite decent wines (including a syrah by Alain Graillot of Crozes-Hermitage fame). But it seems that it wasn’t under French control until after WWI.