Global bulk wine exports lost €312 million in the year through March 2026

Global trade in bulk wine lost about €312 million and 3.4 million hectoliters in the 12 months ended in March 2026, according to an analysis by Del Rey AWM for the World Bulk Wine Exhibition, a sign that the category is weakening faster than the broader wine market.

The report said world bulk wine exports fell 11.8% in value to €2.33 billion and 10.3% in volume to 30 million hectoliters over the period. Based on those rates, the previous 12-month period would have totaled about €2.642 billion and 33.4 million hectoliters. That puts the decline at roughly €312 million in export revenue and 3.4 million hectoliters in shipped volume.

Bulk wine, which is traded in large containers before bottling or further processing, remains an important part of the international wine business by volume. But its economic weight continues to shrink. The average export price during the latest 12-month period stood at about €78 per hectoliter, or €0.78 per liter. Because the drop in value was 1.5 percentage points steeper than the drop in volume, the figures point to a slight additional weakening in unit prices or in the product mix sold.

The downturn was broader than the decline seen in the global wine trade as a whole. Del Rey AWM said total world wine trade fell 8.8% in value and 6.6% in volume over the same period. That means bulk wine contracted 3 percentage points more in value terms and 3.7 percentage points more in volume terms than the overall market.

The latest results also fit a longer trend. Since 2017, exported bulk wine volume has dropped 19.3%, while export value has fallen 11.7%, according to the analysis. Over that period, bulk wine’s share of total world wine trade by value slipped from 8.5% to 7.1%, a loss of 1.4 percentage points. Even so, the segment still represents about one-third of the volume traded internationally, showing that it remains central to supply chains despite losing ground in revenue terms to bottled wine and other higher-value formats.

Spain kept its position as the leading bulk wine exporter and stood out from other major suppliers. The report said Spanish exports rose 0.9% in value even though shipped volume fell 5.2%. That gap suggests an implied gain of about 6.4% in unit value, based on the percentages and rounded totals in the report. In practical terms, Spain sold less bulk wine but generated slightly more money from those sales.

Other major exporters did not perform as well. The value of bulk wine exports fell 20.6% for New Zealand, 15.4% for Australia, and 11.3% for Italy. The report did not attribute those country results to a single cause, but the broader global figures show a market under pressure from weaker demand and lower trading activity.

The numbers matter because bulk wine often acts as a flexible segment within the industry. It can help producers move large volumes across borders at lower logistics costs and allow bottlers or retailers to source wine for blending, private labels, or destination bottling. When this segment slows more sharply than the market as a whole, it can signal weaker demand at the lower-cost end of the trade or a shift toward products with more value added before export.

The gap between bulk wine and the wider market also suggests that producers are finding it harder to protect revenue in this category. A fall in volume can often be offset if prices rise enough, but that did not happen at the global level in the latest period. The decline in value was deeper than the decline in volume, indicating that exporters as a group were not only selling less wine but also earning less per unit on average.

Spain’s performance therefore stands out. While the country’s export volume fell, its increase in total value suggests that it managed to improve pricing, product mix, or both. In a market where overall bulk export revenues are falling faster than volumes, that divergence points to a more favorable commercial position than the one seen in several competing origins.

The figures were issued in an analysis prepared by Del Rey AWM for the World Bulk Wine Exhibition. The data were circulated again on Sept. 28 in China, but the underlying statistics had already been published on Sept. 17. The absolute losses and the estimate of Spain’s unit-value gain are derived from the reported percentages and rounded values.

Taken together, the data show that bulk wine is losing trade faster than wine overall and continues to give up economic weight within the international market. The category still moves very large volumes, but the latest 12-month results show lower sales, lower export earnings, and a continuing shift away from bulk wine in the value structure of global wine trade.