Rioja enjoys global growth in 2017

The Consejo Regulador de Rioja has announced that the region’s wines enjoyed growth across its key export markets in 2017 with white wines in particular proving popular.

Rioja

Total exports exceeded 108 million litres in 2017, it was reported, a growth in volume of over 4% compared to 2016.

Markets experiencing the most elevated growth were; the UK (+3.2%), Canada (+6.7%), the US (+5.8%), Russia (+39.7%) and China (+17.3%).

White wine sales overall grew 16% by volume, “significantly above the market average” and boosting the category to 8% of total Rioja sales, up from 5% five years ago. In the UK sales of white Rioja grew 64% by value and 61% by volume.

Rosé wines meanwhile also increased in volume, up 6% on 2016 while in the UK volumes grew 42.3%.

The Spanish Wine Market Observatory now estimates that Rioja exports amount to 31% of all Spanish DO-labelled wine exports and around 40% of the value, with Riojan wines having an average price 49% higher than the average for other Spanish DO wines and four times higher than the average price of exported Spanish wines.

In the UK Rioja still accounts for 48.5% of all Spanish wine sold by value and 37.8% for Spanish wine by volume.

The average price for a bottle of Rioja in the UK is now £6.79 per bottle, above the average for the market as a whole, which is £5.64.

Last year notoriously saw severe frosts hit the key European wine producing countries of France, Spain and Italy extremely badly.

The consejo reported that: “Despite a total production of about 349 million kilos of grapes, the vintage did not alter stock levels, helping to maintain a stable market. Despite the complexity of the harvest, different technologies were employed to monitor vine performance and the quality expectations for the 2017 vintage remain very high.”