Spain is the first wine producer in the world. It holds the largest vineyard area, with more than one million hectares (13.5% of the world cultivated area), and its production in recent years has hovered around 44 million hectolitres, with peaks such as the 50 million hectolitres produced in 2013, when Spain reached the top position in the list of wine producing countries for the first time.

However, the Spaniards definitely don’t consume all the wine produced in Spain. In fact, domestic wine consumption hasn’t stopped decreasing in recent decades. In absolute terms, Spain is the seventh consuming country, after the U.S., France, Italy, Germany, China and United Kingdom. Regarding consumption per capita, Spain is in the 33rd position. So... who drinks up the Spanish wine?

Spain sells wine to other countries. A lot of wine. According to data from the Spanish Observatory of the Wine Market, all throughout 2014 more than 2,200 million litres were exported, and that doubles the figure a decade ago. The issue is that it is sold cheap. 40% of the exports goes for bulk wine, and 60% of that is sent to two countries: France and Italy, the two next wine producing countries in the world ladder. The average price of bulk wine is about 0.37€ a litre.

At the other end is where quality bottled wine is located. Germany, United Kingdom and the U.S. are the countries spending the most on purchasing Spanish wine. The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, China and Portugal, together with France and Italy, make up the first ten posts of Spanish wine consumers. In these markets, the customer looks for the highest quality at competitive prices, and in that sense they feel attracted by the concept of Pago Wine.