EU spirits exports rose 10%, offsetting steep wine losses in the first half of 2026

European Union beverage exports were almost unchanged in the first half of 2026, but the headline stability hid a clear split between product groups, with wine and beer categories losing ground while spirits and liqueurs posted strong growth, according to the European Commission’s latest agri-food trade monitoring report.

The report, published Aug. 28 and based on Eurostat COMEXT data through June, showed that the EU exported €17.511 billion in wine, beer, cider, other beverages, spirits and liqueurs from January through June. That was nearly the same as the €17.527 billion recorded in the same period of 2025, a difference of just €16 million, or less than 0.1%. The figures are reported in value terms, and the Commission said the statistics used by Brussels were extracted on Aug. 14.

Wine remained the EU’s largest beverage export category by value, but it declined from a year earlier. Exports of wine and wine-based products reached €7.844 billion in the first six months of 2026, down from €8.173 billion in the same period of 2025. The drop of €330 million amounted to 4%. With that result, wine accounted for about 45% of the combined exports of the three beverage categories covered in this part of the Commission’s report.

The first-half figures extended a weaker trend already visible in the annual data cited by the Commission. EU exports of wine and wine-based products had fallen from €17.455 billion in 2024 to €16.500 billion in 2025. Even so, wine continued to generate the largest trade surplus among the beverage groups reviewed in the report.

EU imports of wine and wine-based products totaled €671 million from January through June, compared with exports of €7.844 billion. That left a trade surplus of €7.173 billion. The surplus was still large, but it was below the €7.454 billion posted a year earlier, a decline of €281 million. By itself, wine contributed more than half of the combined trade surplus generated by the three beverage categories.

The beer category also moved lower, although the decline was smaller. The Commission’s grouping of beer, cider and other beverages exported €5.242 billion in the first half, compared with €5.334 billion in the same period of 2025. That was a decrease of €92 million, or 2%. The annual figures in the report show that this category had already slipped from €10.835 billion in 2024 to €10.511 billion in 2025.

The Commission’s classification makes that figure harder to interpret as a beer-only result. Brussels combines “beer, cider and other beverages” in one statistical category and does not provide a separate breakdown in this report. That means the €5.242 billion total cannot be assigned only to beer exports, because it also includes cider and other drinks.

Imports in that category reached €1.200 billion in the first half of the year. Set against exports, that produced a trade surplus of €4.042 billion, slightly below the €4.089 billion registered in the first half of 2025. The decline in the surplus was €47 million. The category accounted for roughly 30% of the combined positive trade balance across the three beverage groups.

The sharpest change came in spirits and liqueurs. EU exports in that category rose from €4.020 billion in the first six months of 2025 to €4.425 billion in the same period of 2026. The gain of €405 million was equal to 10%, making spirits and liqueurs one of the better-performing export categories in the Commission’s broader agri-food trade report. That marked a reversal from 2025, when annual exports in the category had fallen to €8.360 billion from €8.769 billion in 2024.

The Commission linked much of the increase in spirits to sales to Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia. In Ukraine, the report said spirits were the category that contributed the most to higher EU exports to that market. It also pointed to higher revenues from Kazakhstan tied to higher prices, and to larger volumes shipped to Russia. The report did not provide a country-by-country value breakdown for spirits, so it does not show how the additional €405 million was divided among those three markets.

Spirits and liqueurs also had a different import profile from wine. The EU imported €2.168 billion of spirits and liqueurs in the first half of 2026, up from €2.052 billion a year earlier, an increase of 6%. Both imports and exports rose, but exports increased faster. As a result, the category’s trade surplus improved from €1.968 billion to €2.257 billion, a gain of €289 million. Spirits represented about one-quarter of combined beverage exports in the three categories, but more than half of their combined imports.

Taken together, the three categories show how closely the gains in spirits offset the weakness in wine and beer-related products. Wine and wine-based products lost €330 million in export value compared with the first half of 2025, while beer, cider and other beverages lost another €92 million. Combined, those two groups were down €422 million. Spirits and liqueurs added €405 million, absorbing almost all of that decline.

On the import side, the three categories brought in €4.039 billion from January through June. More than half of that total came from spirits and liqueurs, at €2.168 billion. Beer, cider and other beverages accounted for €1.200 billion, while wine and wine-based products accounted for €671 million. The wide gap between exports and imports left the beverage sector with a large positive trade balance overall.

The combined trade surplus for the three categories reached €13.472 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with €13.511 billion a year earlier. The decline was limited to €39 million. Wine contributed €7.173 billion of that surplus, or about 53%, while beer, cider and other beverages contributed €4.042 billion, close to 30%. Spirits and liqueurs generated the remaining €2.257 billion.

The report also pointed to weaker performance in the United States, which it listed among the markets where the value of EU beverage exports fell during the semester. The Commission said the decline in that market was driven mainly by lower prices, but it did not separate the figures by wine, beer or spirits, so the report does not show which product was responsible for the drop.