Austria wine exports decline in 2024 amid global market challenges

Austrian wine exports declined both in terms of value and volume in 2024 due to the “difficult market situation around the world”, the country’s industry association said.

According to data from Statistics Austria, cited by the industry group, the country’s total export value dropped by 6% to €233.3m ($252.4m), while export volume fell by 1.7% to 64.2 million litres.

Austrian Wine Marketing Board (Austrian Wine) CEO Chris Yorke said in a statement: “All wine-producing countries are facing major challenges at the moment: costs that have risen sharply, reduced purchasing propensity and changes in consumers’ drinking habits around the world, to name just a few.

“On top of that, the economic situation worldwide is extremely volatile at the moment, making it difficult to come up with long-term sales strategies.”

A report from the Austrian Wine Marketing Board (ÖWM) in January projected that Austria's wine exports for 2024 would decline from the record levels reached in 2023.

Austria's wine exports, which had grown by 62.7% or nearly €90m since their last decline in 2015, have experienced their first downturn in eight years, the report said.

Austria experienced a general decline in bottled wine exports, with volume falling by 5.1% and in value by 6.3%.

Bottled red wines were “particularly impacted”, registering a 12.5% drop in volume and a 14.4% decline in value.

In contrast, bulk wine exports rose by 16.1% in volume but at a lower price, leading to a 1.4% decline in total bulk wine export value, the figures showed.

Germany continued to be Austria’s largest export market, accounting for 60.2% of total wine exports and 42.3% of export value.

However, the value of exports to Germany fell by 13.6% to €98.8m, despite remaining higher than the 2022 figure of €94.5m. Export volume dropped by 4.4%.

Yorke added: “In 2023, our wine exports came within a hair's breadth of reaching a quarter of a billion at €248m.

“The main driver for this was exceptionally high exports of bottled wine to our main export market, Germany. Since a higher volume of cheaper wine in bulk was sold to Germany again last year, we soon realised that we were not going to be able to match the exceptionally high export value achieved in 2023. The global economic situation as a whole is just too volatile for that at the moment.”

Switzerland, previously Austria’s second-largest export market, saw “painful losses”, with export volume down by 33.1% and value falling by 18.2%.

A general decrease in Swiss wine imports, particularly red wines, contributed to these figures.