In the first half of the year, bulk wine accounted for one-third of the volume but only 6.6% of the value of wines traded worldwide. While the UK is losing its share as a target market, Germany consolidates its position as the largest importer by volume. This data is sourced from a bulletin by the World Bulk Wine Exhibition, using figures from the Spanish Wine Market Observatory (OEMV).
The overall global trend is declining; there's a decrease in the trade of bulk wines, and bottled wines show a similar trend. The reasons are diverse and, to a large extent, consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The only category witnessing an increase in trade volume in 2023 is Bag-in-Box wines (BiB). The growing number of traded BiBs, especially from Spain to target markets like Germany, Poland, Netherlands, and Belgium, significantly influences this.
Bulk wine imports in Germany rose by 6.6% to over 3.6m hectoliters. France, with a slight decrease (–5,1%), is the second-largest bulk wine importer (2.21m hl), surpassing the UK (–7.3%) with 2.2m hectoliters and the USA (–15%) with 2.06m hectoliters. Canada's import volumes increased by 5.1%, while China faced a significant loss (–26%). Portugal has seen substantial growth (+19.3% in volume and +9.6% in value), becoming the fifth-largest bulk wine importer globally.
Other smaller markets such as Ivory Coast, Slovakia, Angola, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, and Lithuania also experienced an increase in bulk wine imports. In contrast, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Poland, and New Zealand imported less bulk wine than in the first half of 2022.
An unexpected boom
Australia presents a surprising scenario in terms of value. Although global prices for Australian bulk wines are extremely low due to the vast surplus of red wine in Australian cellars, the country recorded the highest increase in value for its bulk wine imports (+45.6% to about $54m). Consequently, Australia ranks 6th in the largest bulk wine importers by value, even though it stands only at the 15th position by volume (16.6m liters, up by 16.3%). This is primarily due to the 25% increase in the average price, now $324 per hectoliter, which is significantly higher than most other importing countries. In contrast, Italy experienced a downturn – import revenues plummeted by 48%, causing the country to drop from 7th to 13th place in terms of value for bulk wine imports.
