El consumo de vino en España se recupera en 2021

Wine regained ground in the Spanish market after a complicated year, with a notable rise in consumption. From designations such as Utiel-Requena the figure was welcomed with optimism, although the full picture has its lights and shadows.

Growth that was a long time coming

Wine consumption clearly rebounded compared with the previous year, when health restrictions sank the numbers. The reopening of hospitality was decisive: in Spain a great deal of wine is drunk away from home, and that channel came back to life month after month. For the wineries, every point of recovery translated into orders that had been a long time in coming.

Areas such as the Utiel-Requena Designation of Origin, in the Valencian interior, celebrated the news. It is a territory closely tied to bobal, a native variety that is gaining recognition and finds in wine tourism a way to make itself known.

Less production and less stock

Against the good consumption figure, wine and must production fell compared with the previous year. The decline was especially marked in must. A shorter harvest reduces stocks, and that has a positive reading for the producer: with less wine available, the market tends to balance out and prices find a floor.

• Consumption: recovering after the slump.
• Production: below the previous campaign.
• Must: the sharpest drop.

Bobal as a banner

In Utiel-Requena, the recovery in consumption comes at a moment when the region is reclaiming what is its own. Bobal, once destined mainly for bulk wine, now stars in reds with a modern profile and rosés with character. It is a good example of how a traditional variety can reinvent itself when there is a real project behind it. The region's old vines, many planted as bush vines and at high altitude, yield grapes with natural acidity and intense colour that fit what today's consumer is looking for: fresh, easy-drinking wines with a stamp of origin.

From the figures to the vineyard

Statistics are useful for taking the pulse of the sector, but wine is truly understood by setting foot on the ground. Touring the wineries of a region, tasting its local varieties and talking to the people who make them is the best way to give meaning to these figures. Areas such as Utiel-Requena, little more than an hour from Valencia, let you combine vineyard, gastronomy and landscape in a weekend getaway. You can start by exploring the wineries by province and finding the nearest one.

The recovery in consumption is not an ending but a starting point: the challenge now is to build loyalty with those returning to the glass and to turn every visit into a reason to come back.