It has been a difficult year for many wine producers. The difficult fungal disease downy mildew has been widely present in Europe’s southern wine regions, where many producers have lost part of their harvest. The copious rains early in the season brought on the nasty fungus. However, the world production of wine in 2018 is still very big, according to recently published figures. The estimate of total global wine production is 282 million hectolitres, a high figure compared to 2017 with its historical low 251 million hl, and one of the highest harvests since 2000.
In Europe, all three of the big wine-growing countries had large crops:
- Italy (48.5 million hl)
- France (46.4 Mhl) and
- Spain (40.9 Mhl).
In Europe, only Portugal (5.3 Mhl) and Greece (2.2 Mhl) had smaller harvests than 2017.
Outside of Europe:
South Africa only managed a small harvest (9.5 Mhl) due to severe drought.
Chile (12.9 Mhl) and Argentina (14.5 Mhl), on the other hand, greatly increased their production compared with 2017.
The United States (23.9 Mhl) scored a normal harvest and is solidly anchored as the world’s fourth biggest producer.
Australia (12.5 Mhl) decreased slightly and New Zealand (3 Mhl) again made a big harvest.
Read more: OIV
