Latest Data Finds Spain is Home to 30% of Vineyards in EU by Area

Latest Data Finds Spain is Home to 30% of Vineyards in EU by Area

Spanish wine has always been placed in a bit of a unique position by the wine drinkers of the world.

Spanish wines have long been considered the best in Europe

It’s not quite as traditional or exceptional as French wine, nor is it as romantic as Italian wine. It doesn’t carry the buzz of the New World wines of Chile, South Africa, and Australia. Spanish wine is the kind of wine you take with you for a housewarming party. It says you aren’t cheap, but that you aren’t going to splash out either because your friends have a new house.

This “everyman” nature of Spanish isn’t a bad thing however. It is because of this that Spain has become the largest wine producer in the European Union, according to data released by Eurostat this week. The data shows that Spanish vineyards account for 30% of vineyards in the EU.

With 940,000 hectares, Spain has a larger area of vineyards than any other member of the EU. France came in second with 803,000 hectares (25%), with Italy snatching third with its 610,000 (19%). Portugal was a distant fourth, with only 199,000 (6%).

There’s an interesting statistic hidden in the data. Romania – which is the fifth-largest wine producer with 184,000 hectares – is also the EU country with the most individual wineries. There are 855,000 wineries in Romania, putting it well ahead of Spain, which came in second with 518,000 wineries.

Spain is still one of the most important producers of plonk in the EU however, as grapes from Spain are used not just in Spanish wine, but also in French and Italian wines. The Castilla-la-Mancha region of Spain is the largest wine producing region; housing 434,000 hectares – 14% of the entire vineyard area of the EU. The other large regions are Languedoc-Roussillon (293,000 hectares) and Aquitaine (144,000 hectares) which are in France.

The EU has a total of 3.2 million hectares of vineyards spread among 2.4 million individual sites. Most nations in the EU have some vineyards at least, all the way from Romania to the UK (553 vineyards) and Luxemburg (326 vineyards).

There are a few EU countries with absolutely no vineyards. They include Belgium – which has beer, Ireland – which has Guinness, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania – where the weather is too cold, Poland, Finland, and Sweden – with similar weather issues, and, perhaps most surprisingly, the Netherlands.