Is China's love affair with wine waning?

Is China starting to fall out of love with wine?

China’s dwindling wine consumption has been directly responsible for dragging down global wine consumption, the Organisation of International Wine and Vine (OIV) says.

The organisation estimates that China has been drinking less wine each year since 2018, with an annual loss of roughly 260 million bottles, Chinese website Vino Joy reports.

The latest State of the World Vine and Wine in 2022 report published by OIV, shows that since 2018, global wine consumption has decreased at a regular rate, which is mainly attributed to the decline in China’s consumption.

Which is not good news for Australian wine producers with surplus product waiting for Chinese tariffs to be lifted.

This downward trend was accentuated in 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought a depressing effect on many large wine markets.

China’s restrictive Covid measures and repeated lockdowns further contracted the local market’s wine consumption.

The country’s 2022 wine consumption was down 16% drop on 2021, causing “a significant impact” on the fall in global consumption, says the OIV.