The wine sector breathes again. The in Spain rebounded 2.5% in the last year and reached 9.9 million hectoliters, according to data from the interprofessional organization of the wine. At the same time, exports grew by 12% in the first semester, especially in bulk, and 6% in value. The sector has begun to raise the head after the pandemic coup, but none of this has ended: the surplus.
In Spain, wine, and the agricultural sector and administrations continue to stop the trend and achieve an adjustment between supply and demand with a series of measures. In addition to enhancing markets, it stands out for its economic and environmental repercussions, or with the possibility of medium -term replantations. All this with the public subsidies raised by the agricultural organizations, although the sector is waiting to know the proposal in the medium term on the wine that Brussels will present soon.
In Spain, a similar action was already carried out in the early 1990s and about 130,000 hectares were started. All for the same problems. These types of measures are not only raised here, but also in other large community producers such as France, where there are plans to eliminate between 30,000 and 60,000 hectares with a cost of 120 million.
In the last three decades, due to subsidized starts or simply by the retirement of elderly, lack of relief, droughts or profitability shortage, the sector has gone from more than one million hectares to the current 829.00, with a high volume of irrigated surfaces.
With these capabilities, Spain obtains average productions of about 40 million hectoliters. There were peaks a decade of up to 50 million and falls to 32.8 million in the previous campaign. In the last one there have been 36 million. Faced with these figures, internal demand fell to less than 10 million hectoliters and exports, although they remain high – especially for cheap bulk – have dropped in recent years from 23 to 19 million hectoliters.
The wine sector has been the object of analysis by the high -level group on the EU wine policy, which groups the entire sector in the community framework, in addition to the commission itself. There is unanimity in the causes of the problem and, likewise, in the possible exits. One of the main ones is specified in the limitation of surfaces and yields to adjust the offer. Also in increasing markets, although the large -scale turns after Donald Trump’s return to the White House. In the part of the production, on the ground, the need to articulate financial aid for starts by each member country, as well as the modification of mechanisms on replanting or reduction of authorizations on new plantations.
In this context of mismatch between supply and demand, agricultural organizations COAG, UPA, ASAJA and Union of Unions claim, with different nuances, that administrations implement starting plans with public aid. The existence of an intervention plan in the wine sector is remembered, with more than 200 million euros each year for different purposes. And to these measures others are added in force in the production part: the limitation of yields per hectare at 20,000 kilos of whites in whites and 18,000 in reds with yields of 74% in the winery. Although they are measures with a different application according to the decision of the regulatory advice and their production strategies.
Although the mismatch between the supply and demand of wine, Rafael del Rey, consultant in the sector, notes that you cannot speak together: the situation is different in each territory and for each of the types is evident. While there was come in territories of the center and La Rioja, or problems on the quality of red Each reality, the analyst points out.
