Some interesting statistics from CIVB on wine growing and wine production in Bordeaux:
- 117,500 hectares of vineyard land
- 60 appellations (AOCs)
- 5.7 million hl made in 2009 (4.8 in 2008, 5.7 in 2007)
- 14.5 ha = average size of a vineyard holding
- 89% of the vineyards are planted with red grapes
- 11% of the acreage is planted with white grapes
- The most planted red grape varieties: merlot 63%, cabernet sauvignon 25%, cabernet franc 11%, other 1%
- The most planted white grape varieties: : sémillon 53%, sauvignon blanc (including gris) 38%, muscadelle 6%, other 3%
- 8650 wine growers
- 300 négociant
- 93 wine brokers
- 4.96 million hectolitres of wine sold in 2009
- 3.37 billion euros, the value of the sales
2 Responses
Another interesting fact in today’s market is that the enormous price rises for top chateaux, in the wake of a string of high quality vintages and an expansion of demand to non-traditional markets, is that these chateaux represent just 5% of production.
The world’s most foremost wine region, therefore, still very much has a lot to offer.
Absolutely agree.
There’s a lot of writing in the press and on line on the astronomic prices of Bordeaux and the incredible price hikes on those wines. But it’s only 50, or more realistically 15-20 chateaux that do (can do) that.
There’s a huge (HUGE) pool of good value wines in Bordeaux today with prices at 5-15 euro (consumer price; perhaps a bit more outside of France).
But they struggle to sell their wines since everyone thinks “expensive” when they think Bordeaux.
So this thing with having a “famous locomotive” (much talked about in some appellations today) is not always a good thing.