Global wine production in 2025 rebounded slightly after the historic low 2024 vintage, reversing a three-year trend of successive declines.
Total production was up by 3 per cent year-on-year according to the OIV, despite continuing climatic challenges, market pressures and some supply adjustments.
This market bulletin looks at the 2025 vintage results for the major wine-producing countries, and the implications for global supply and demand.
Northern hemisphere
France and Spain both had smaller crops in 2025 than in 2024 and well below their five-year averages, due to high climatic variability compounded by demand-driven adjustments. France had its smallest vintage since 1957, due to a combination of prolonged heat and drought, as well as a significant amount of government-subsidised vineyard restructuring and removals in the past two years. Spain experienced its third consecutive year of drought, as well as extreme weather events including heatwaves and hailstorms, resulting in the second-smallest vintage in the past 30 years.
Conversely, Italy had a 7 per cent year-on-year increase, producing a harvest slightly above its 5-year average – the only major producer in the northern hemisphere to do so –driven by favourable weather conditions. It was the largest wine-producing country in the world in 2025 by a significant margin, increasing its share from 16 per cent in 2023 to over 20 per cent in 2025. The US saw a slight increase year-on-year but remained below its five-year average, with the smaller crop widely attributed to vine removals and restricted intake, according to Ciatti. Figure 1 shows the changes in wine production for the largest global wine-producing countries.
Figure 1: Change in wine production by country in 2025
Source: OIV and Wine Australia
Southern hemisphere
Overall, the southern hemisphere harvest increased by 7 per cent in 2025, driven by increases in Australia (up 11 per cent), South Africa (up 16 per cent) and New Zealand (up 32 per cent). Conversely, Chile and Argentina both saw declines. Despite the increase, all the major southern hemisphere producers were below their five-year average wine production except South Africa and New Zealand (see Figure 1).
Scarcity of water, significant stock overhangs and financial constraints on growers and winemakers were major factors contributing to Argentina’s small production according to Ciatti, while Chile has seen significant vine removals in the past few years. South Africa saw a recovery from two low vintages to be close to its five-year average, after near-ideal seasonal conditions, while New Zealand’s production was the second-largest on record, primarily driven by significant new plantings coming on stream. The area of vineyard in New Zealand has increased by 17 per cent since 2016, according to the NZ Winegrowers’ Annual Report 2025 (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Area of vineyard in New Zealand 2016–2025
Source: New Zealand Winegrowers
Global supply trends
Despite the small uptick in 2025, global wine production has dropped significantly in the past six years. After peaking at just under 30 billion litres in 2018, it has fallen more than 20 per cent since, to be estimated at just over 23 billion litres in 2025. This is likely to reflect a combination of long-term climate changes and global consumption trends.
Increasing drought, heat and extreme weather events as well as water cost and scarcity have reduced supply potential, particularly in the northern hemisphere. Added to this, rising interest rates, inflation and costs of production are making it harder for growers and wineries to finance the annual harvest.
While production has declined, the underlying supply base has not reduced by anywhere near the same amount. The OIV reported in late 2025 that the total vineyard area in 2024 declined for the fourth consecutive year; however, the total reduction in 2024 was less than 1 per cent compared with 2023. Over the past five years (2019 to 2024), the OIV reports that global vineyard area declined by a total of 4 per cent, from 7.4 million hectares to 7.1 million hectares.
Spain (13 per cent), France (11 per cent), China (11 per cent) and Italy (10 per cent) have the largest shares of vineyard area. Australia has an estimated 2 per cent of global vineyard area – although accurate statistics on planted area are not available.
In many countries, notably Chile, the US and France, vine removals are starting to be widely reported anecdotally, although there are very few statistics on actual areas or percentages being removed. At this stage it is not known how much of the removal effort has been focused on old, unproductive vines that will be replaced with more efficient and in-demand varieties, reversing any impact on overall supply and increasing the future global competitiveness of the growers – and countries – undertaking this activity on a large scale.
The vineyard statistics available from New Zealand indicate that there is likely to be more Sauvignon Blanc coming into production in the next 1–3 years, potentially over-shooting demand for that variety.
Global demand trends
Global wine consumption has been declining over the same time period, driven by changing consumer preferences and demographics exacerbated by geopolitical uncertainty and cost of living pressures in many countries.
Added to the reduction in underlying demand has been the accumulation of excess carryover stocks in many countries at both the wine producer and the retailer level, further softening the market. This means that, despite the fairly sudden recent drop in supply, it still exceeded consumption by an average of 7 per cent in the past three years, continuing the trend of exceeding consumption by an average of over 10 per cent every year since (and including) 2018 (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Global wine production and consumption over time
Source: OIV, IWSR and Wine Australia
Global outlook
According to alcohol research and data company IWSR, total wine consumption is forecast to decrease by a further 1 per cent on average per year for the next five years.
That amounts to a total decline of 1 billion litres in five years.
To reduce global supply to align with consumption of around 20 billion litres per year would mean reducing global vineyard area to somewhere around 6 million hectares – a reduction of 1 million hectares (14 per cent).
Wine Australia’s recently updated Global Supply Monitor can be found here.