In June 2026, IWSR published its annual global data release and confirmed two things about wine that the industry has been aware of for years but has not always planned around: global wine volumes have now fallen below global spirits volumes for the first time in recorded history, and IWSR is forecasting wine volume to decline a further 14% between 2025 and 2035.
These two data points sit alongside the International Organisation of Vine and Wine’s confirmed 2025 figures: global wine consumption fell 2.7% to 208 million hectolitres – the fourth consecutive annual decline and approximately 14% below 2018 levels. Global wine export value fell 6.7% to €33.8 billion. Production remained below historical averages for the third consecutive year at 227 million hectolitres.
The aggregate picture is one of structural decline. But wine is not declining uniformly. The category is splitting – across colour, price tier, geography, and format – in ways that create genuinely different commercial environments for different types of wine business. Understanding which part of the split your brand or business occupies is more commercially useful than the aggregate numbers alone, and the data from this period is specific enough to make that distinction possible.
Red wine and the scale of the shift
The most significant structural change within the global wine category is not the overall volume decline – it is the accelerating divergence between red wine and every other colour category. Red wine has declined at twice the rate of white wine since 2017 and is now nearly 450 million cases lower than it was in that year, according to IWSR data cited by Wine Australia’s Peter Bailey in the National Vintage Report 2026 published 15 July 2026.
That figure – 450 million cases below the 2017 peak – is the clearest available quantification of how large the red wine structural shift has been. For context, IWSR estimates total global wine consumption at approximately 2.8 billion cases annually. A 450 million case decline in red wine volumes since 2017 represents a category-within-a-category contraction of approximately 16% from its peak over eight years. And the pace has not slowed: Australia’s 2026 winegrape crush saw red grapes down 29% in a single year, not because of weather alone but because winemaker demand for red grapes has declined structurally.
In the US – the world’s largest wine market by value – Cabernet Sauvignon volumes declined 12% in 2025, according to WSWA data. The big red format – full-bodied, tannic, high-alcohol – that drove large volumes through the 2010s has lost consumer relevance at a rate that now registers clearly in production, pricing, and vineyard management decisions.
White wine has declined too – but less severely and less consistently. The OIV confirmed that white wine production overtook red wine production globally in 2013 and the gap has continued to widen. In the US, Chardonnay was down 8% in 2025, but white wine as a category maintained more relative stability than reds. Australia’s 2026 National Vintage Report confirmed white grapes declining 9% versus red’s 29% in the same harvest year, and white now accounting for 53% of the Australian crush – only the second time in twelve years that whites have constituted the majority.
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