At the end of 2015, Russia dropped out of the top five world's largest wine importers, according to the report of the International Wine Organization (OIV). The volume of wine imports into the country in monetary terms decreased by more than 25%

Photo: Lori

Victims of the embargo

According to the International Wine Organization (OIV), wine imports to Russia at the end of 2015 decreased by 14.5% in volume terms, to 400 million liters, and by 27.7% in monetary terms, to €625 million. “The reason for the fall <...> became sanctions and the associated economic crisis in the country,” the organization’s report notes .

As a result, Russia dropped from fifth place in the ranking of the world's largest wine importers to seventh, behind China and Canada. At the end of 2015, Germany became the largest wine importer in the world, importing 1.5 billion liters of wine worth €2.5 billion (see table).

In its statistics, OIV takes into account not only bottled wine, but also wine materials imported to Russia for bottling. From the organization’s data it follows that last year not only a smaller volume of wine was imported into Russia, but also a noticeably cheaper product: according to OIV, in 2014 the average cost of a 0.7 liter bottle of wine imported into Russia was €1. 29, and in 2015 - €1.09.

OIV data is confirmed by figures from the Federal Customs Service (FCS). According to its data, in 2015, 404 million liters of wines and wine materials were imported into Russia, which is 13.9% less than a year earlier. At the same time, imports of still wines into Russia in 2015 decreased by 32.6%, to 167.2 million liters. But wine production in Russia (including from imported wine materials) increased by 25%, to 400 million liters. As a result, the share of imported wines in 2015, according to RBC calculations, accounted for less than a third of the Russian market - 29.5% (versus 42.9% in 2014).

Who drinks more

According to OIV, China in 2015 increased its vineyard area by 34%, to 830 thousand hectares, and took second place in the world after Spain in terms of land area devoted to grape cultivation. Russia ranks 17th in the ranking with 63 thousand hectares of vineyards. The European OIV does not take into account the vineyards of Crimea as Russian territory, but even with them, the total area of vineyards in Russia does not reach 100 thousand hectares.

Italy became the largest wine producer in the world in 2015, increasing volumes by 12% over the year, to 4.95 billion liters. It also became the leader in terms of export volume, selling 2.4 billion liters of wine to foreign markets (65% of production) and receiving €2.6 billion for it. In terms of revenue from wine exports, France took first place in the world, earning €8.2 billion on the sale of 1.4 billion liters of wine.

The largest consumer of wine in the world in 2015 remained the United States, where 3.1 billion liters of wine were sold. Russia took ninth place in the ranking of the largest consumers at the end of 2015 with 890 million liters.

According to a study by the Wine Institute (California), published in November 2015, Russia ranks 77th in the world (out of 222 countries) in per capita wine consumption with an indicator of 6.95 liters per year per person. For comparison: in Croatia, which ranks third in this indicator (the first two are in the Vatican and Andorra), the average consumer drinks 44.2 liters of wine per year.