Prospective Trends in Wine Export Markets – Expert Views from Spain

As in other European producing countries, the wine industry in Spain faces growing competition from New World producers. International competitiveness of Spanish and European wines has been affected by increasing supply, declining public support, saturated domestic demand and increasingly quality-driven markets. Resolving the derived wine competitiveness crisis would require production rationalisation and adaptation to changing commercial and demand requirements, through new productive processes and strategies for further opening of foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore main current and future trends affecting the global wine market and their consequences from the Spanish perspective. After identifying the world wine market’s main characteristics and conditioning regulatory factors, a prospective analysis of international trade and its impact on export strategies of Spanish operators is carried out, through a two-phase surveying process accomplished with a representative expert group from different backgrounds. Broadly, the results obtained indicate that the main tendencies experienced over the last decade will be maintained and/or intensified during the coming years, while emphasising the role of new consuming countries, demand-driven attributes, product differentiation and promotional marketing as most determining factors for future evolution of wine trade and competitiveness.