People in the Balearics spend, on average, more on wine than in any other region of the country. A study into wine spending by the Constanza Business & Protocol School in Madrid suggests that the average annual amount spent on wine in the Balearics is 153.8 euros, which is ahead of the 152.6 euros in Catalonia and 149.5, 143.7 and 142.5 euros in, respectively, Valencia, the Canaries and Madrid.
In terms of total spending, this reflects size of population. Hence, the most is spent in Andalusia - 1,144 million euros per annum - followed by Catalonia with 1,140 million, Madrid on 918 million and Valencia with 741 million. This all gives an annual total spend on wine in Spain of 6,454 million euros, which equates to 3.3% of the entire global wine business. The average per Spaniard works out at 139.11 euros a year.
Nieves Pérez Verdú, a professor at the business school and the director of the research study, says that spending on and consumption of wine has in fact been decreasing in Spain for some year and that this downward trend is expected to continue. This is resulting in Spain becoming the European wine-producing country with the most modest spend on wine per inhabitant.
Globally, the highest total spending is in the USA, China, Italy, France and Russia. The Americans fork out the equivalent of 29,174,000 euros a year, with the Chinese not far behind. Of these five countries, the lowest amount is that of Russia, where it is 14,716,000.
The world leaders in terms of average spending per year are the Italians. Their figure of 425.82 euros is quite significantly higher than that of Spain. The next four highest average spenders are the Portuguese, the Danes, the French and the Swedish.
This spending does not necessarily equate to actual consumption. Germany replaces Russia in the top five globally in this regard, with the Americans still leading the way with 3,274,000 litres per annum. The highest average consumption is in Italy, but the Swedes are edged out by the Belgians when it comes to making the top five for actual consumption.
One of the study's conclusions is that emerging markets are expected to become stronger in the next few years, meaning that the global market share for wine will shift more in favour of China and Russia.