The European wine industry is not facing a temporary crisis. It is facing a reckoning that comes after years of inability to read the market. The support plan approved in early December by the European Commission certifies this difficulty. Faced with falling consumption, struggling exports, and obsolete production models, the response remains defensive. But above all, partial. Reassuring? Only in appearance.
The numbers are well known. But they continue to be treated as if they were reversible by inertia. Since 2000, wine consumption in Europe has dropped by 35%. France, Spain, and Italy still produce 60% of the world’s wine. Yet this primacy is no longer a competitive strength: it is the heart of the problem. In 2025, global consumption is estimated at 214 million hectoliters, a historic low. We produce too much for a market that no longer exists as we remember it.
UPROOTING IS A CHOICE, NOT A STRATEGY
The European plan focuses primarily on permanent vineyard uprooting. In France, €130 million has been allocated, with contributions of €4,000 per hectare. Italy and Spain are following the same path. Reducing supply to chase falling demand is a technical solution, not an industrial vision.
In the French case, uprooting will lead to the removal of approximately 1.5 million hectoliters, just 10% of the surplus estimated for 2025. An intervention insufficient on a quantitative level and entirely evasive on a qualitative one. The real issue remains unaddressed: why is wine no longer selling as it once did?
CONSUMPTION IS CHANGING, THE SECTOR IS NOT
Over the past ten years, global production and consumption have both decreased by approximately 10%, but in Europe the decline in consumption has exceeded 25% since 2000. France has lost its production primacy to Italy, but leadership is no longer measured in hectoliters. It is measured in the ability to interpret new consumption behaviors, something the European sector struggles to do.
For years, exports masked the problem. Today they no longer do. In China, wine consumption has collapsed by over 60% after the pandemic. In the United States, new tariff barriers further complicate market access. European wines, especially those in the entry-level segment, are no longer automatically competitive.
THE POSITIONING TABOO
The almost exclusive focus on uprooting also serves to avoid a more uncomfortable confrontation: the one about positioning. The sector continues to evoke the “quality leap” without truly addressing market polarization. Entry-level wines, particularly in some areas of southern France and Mediterranean Europe, are squeezed between non-European competition and contracting domestic demand. Thinking that reducing acreage will solve this knot is an illusion.
Wine continues to be treated as a homogeneous product, while differences between producers, territories, and business models widen. Public policies, however, lag behind, anchored to an agricultural vision that does not account for market dynamics.
THE RISK OF DEFENDING THE PAST
“The crisis currently affecting the European wine sector reflects a structural imbalance that goes beyond simply reducing supply,” observes Pietro Vargiu, Italy Country Manager of Coface, a global leader in commercial credit risk management, with 100,000 clients in approximately 200 markets. Words that highlight the need to rethink commercial strategies, financial solidity, and credit risk management, especially for producers most exposed in the lower price segments.
According to economist Simon Lacoume, who specializes in commodities and agricultural sectors, “current measures, while essential, are not sufficient to reinvent the sector sustainably.” A weighty judgment, because it exposes the real risk: that of continuing to defend the past. While the market changes, elsewhere.
European wine remains a cultural, agricultural, and economic heritage. But no heritage is preserved by decree. Without deep reflection on consumption, product identity, and business models, uprooting risks becoming the symbol of a sector that refuses to question its own future.
