If you needed another reason to love Portugal, it turns out that the Iberian nation really is the true home of wine lovers. Portugal consumes more wine per capita than any other country, according to data from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) and money.co.uk. Brits, meanwhile, drink about twice as much wine as the average American.
The data measured was presented as part of money.co.uk’s The World of Wine report and took account of consumption that occurred during 2020. The report also found the US to be the world’s largest wine consumer, drinking in total 4.4 billion bottles during the past year.
Looking at it as a per person per week situation, in 2020, each person in Portugal is estimated to have consumed a liter of wine per week – the equivalent to 4 large glasses of wine. Brits consumed on average two glasses per week, while Americans consumed just one.
“Global consumption of wine hit its lowest level since 2002 last year, but our analysis reveals the UK still drinks more wine per person than in the USA and Canada,” said Salman Haqqi, consumer spending expert at money.co.uk. “As a nation, we drank over 1.7 billion bottles of wine – making us the fifth largest consumer of wine in the world. However, when considering consumption per person, the UK is still behind neighbouring European countries, Portugal, Italy and France.
“While we may not consume as much wine as those on the continent, the UK’s love affair with grapes is bucking the worldwide trend and continuing to grow. Not only this, Britain is now home to over 700 vineyards and in 2020 exported wine to over 100 countries with a value of over half a billion dollars. The UK is unlikely to ever take the largest market share of wine consumption or production, but it does potentially present an exciting opportunity for producers and investors.”
Here’s the wine per capita per country table in full:
| Portugal | 613m | 69.2 |
| Italy | 3.27bn | 62.1 |
| France | 3.29bn | 61.3 |
| Australia | 760m | 37.1 |
| Argentina | 1.25bn | 36.8 |
| Germany | 2.64bn | 36.7 |
| Sweden | 293m | 36.0 |
| Spain | 1.28bn | 31.8 |
| UK | 1.77bn | 31.8 |
| Czech Republic | 280m | 30.9 |
| Canada | 587m | 18.5 |
| USA | 4.4bn | 16.3 |
| Russia | 1.37bn | 11.5 |
| Japan | 467m | 4.2 |
| China | 1.65bn | 1.4 |
| Switzerland | 347m | 0.92 |
| Austria | 307m | 0.77 |
| Belgium | 347m | 0.69 |
| Netherlands | 467m | 0.62 |
| Romania | 507m | 0.60 |
| South Africa | 413m | 0.19 |
| Brazil | 573m | 0.07 |