The International Economics of Wine

The following sections are included:

• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction

This paper describes the theoretical and empirical structure of the World Multisectoral Wine Model, which uses some of the features of general equilibrium models. The model is disaggregated into the expanding premium and shrinking non-premium segments of the wine market. To illustrate its usefulness, we model the impact on the global market of the projected rapid premium supply expansion in New World wine production to 2005. The results show supply-induced falls in producer prices of New World producers are dampened or even reversed in the projection period by a growing consumer preference globally for premium wine. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Brief history of wine industry globalisation
• Recent developments
• Prospects to 2005 and beyond
• Conclusion
• References

In this paper, we use a revised, expanded, and updated version of a global model first developed by Wittwer et al. (2003) to project the wine markets of its 44 countries plus seven residual country groups to 2018. Because real exchange rate (RER) changes have played a key role in the fortunes of wine market participants in some countries in recent years, we use the model to analyze their impact, first retrospectively during 2007–11 and then prospectively during the period to 2018 under two alternative sets of RERs: no change, and a halfway return to 2009 rates. In both scenarios, we assume a return to the gradual trend toward premium wines and away from nonpremium wines. The other major development expected to affect the world’s wine trade is growth in China’s import demand. Alternative simulations provide a range of possibilities, but even the low-growth scenario suggests that China’s place in global wine markets is likely to become increasingly prominent.

This paper overviews the current structure and dynamics of international trade in wine with an emphasis on its intra-industry features. Using network analytic methods, we illustrate developments in the world’s wine markets since the mid-1960s around a relatively stable core of countries. Those developments include both evolving demands for wine and, on the supply side, a rapidly emerging group of countries entering the core without displacing the original members. Not surprisingly, given that the analysis is based on bilateral trade in a single product, the developing patterns of intra-industry trade are quite consistent with the patterns revealed in the network analysis.

Winegrape production is generally considered riskier in cool-climate regions than in warmer ones, yet more producers are looking to invest in such regions. A commonly stated reason is to hedge against global warming, but is there more to it than that? This note reflects on some other supply-side drivers as well as some drivers from the demand side of global wine markets. It first defines what characterizes a cool-climate region; and it ends by drawing implications for the economic future of such cool regions as compared with the world’s warmer wine regions.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Historical backdrop: Wine in the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom in global wine markets
• Global wine markets model and database
• Projecting global wine markets to 2025
• References

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Expected effects of leaving a customs union
• Global wine markets model and database
• How might Brexit affect wine markets by 2025?
• Effects of new bilateral FTAs with non-EU countries
• Caveats and conclusions
• References
• Appendix

A computable general equilibrium model of the Australian economy is used to account for the dramatic growth in Australia’s wine industry between 1987 and 1999, and to project grape and wine volumes and prices to 2003. Export demand growth has made a major contribution to total output growth in premium wines, and accounts for most of the increase in the producer price of premium red wine. Domestic consumer preferences have shifted, mainly towards premium red wine, but there is also some evidence of growing demand for premium white wine since the mid 1990s. From the perspective of producers, productivity growth, while being less important than growth in domestic demand, appears to have more than offset the negative effects on suppliers of wine consumer tax increases. From the domestic consumers’ perspective, however, tax hikes have raised retail prices much more than productivity gains have lowered them. The high and sustained levels of profitability resulting from export demand growth have led to a massive supply response in Australia. Even so, by 2003 Australian wine output will still be less than 5 per cent of global production.

The present paper estimates the distributions of aggregate returns from different types of research and promotion investments by the Australian grape and wine industry among grapegrowers, winemakers, domestic and foreign consumers, and the tax office. The results show that most of the gains from cost-reducing R&D in grape and wine production go to producers and that producers get a far larger share of the benefit from export promotion than from domestic promotion. Foreign consumers of Australian wine also enjoy a significant share of the benefits from Australian R&D. Sensitivity analysis shows that the key results hold for a wide range of parameter values.

We estimate hedonic price functions for premium wine from Australia and New Zealand, differentiating implicit prices for sensory quality ratings, wine varieties and regional as well as winery brand reputations over the vintages 1992–2000. The results show regional reputations have become increasingly differentiated through time (although less so for New Zealand). In particular, cool-climate regions are becoming increasingly preferred over other regions in Australia. In each country, price premia associated with both James Halliday’s and Winestate magazine’s sensory quality ratings, and with Halliday’s winery ratings and classic wine designations, are highly significant.

To what extent can the future price of icon wines be anticipated from information available at the time of their initial sale by wineries? Using a seemingly unrelated regression model we show that weather variables and changes in production techniques, along with the age of the wine, have significant power in explaining the secondary market price variation across different vintages of each of three icon Australian red wines. The results have implications for winemakers in determining the prices they pay for grapes and charge for their wines, and for consumers/wine investors as a guide to the prospective quality of immature icon wines.

Despite favourable growing conditions, Australia’s production or exports of wine did not become significant until the 1890s. Both grew in the 1920s, but only because of government support. Once that support was removed in the late 1940s, production plateaued and exports diminished: only two per cent of wine production was exported during 1975–1985. Yet over the next two decades, Australia’s wine production quadrupled and the share exported rose to two-thirds — before falling somewhat in the next 10 years. This paper explains why it took so long for Australia’s production and competitive advantage in wine to emerge, why it took off spectacularly after the mid-1980s and why it fell in the 10 years to 2016. It concludes that despite the recent downturn in the industry’s fortunes, the country’s international competitiveness is now firmly established and commensurate with its ideal wine-growing climate, notwithstanding the likelihood of further boom-slump cycles in the decades ahead.

The former Soviet republic of Georgia is reputedly the cradle of wine and has enjoyed at least 8,000 vintages. It has also been a major supplier of wine to Russia for at least 200 years, but to few other countries. In 2006, however, Russia imposed a ban on beverage imports from Georgia. Since then this relatively poor country, in which nearly half the population is rural and most farmers have a vineyard, has been seeking to develop new export markets for its wine. This paper assesses the potential for growth in Georgia’s wine production and exports. It then outlines ways to address the challenges involved in trying to realize that potential, drawing on the experience of other countries that have rapidly expanded their wine exports in the past two decades. Implications for policy are drawn, particularly for ensuring that poverty is reduced as exports expand and the economy grows.

Over the past decade Hong Kong and China have become far more important to the world’s wine markets, while Southeast Asia’s imports of fine wine continue to grow steadily. This paper reviews recent developments in the light of comparative advantage theory before drawing on a model of global wine markets to project developments in Asia and elsewhere over the next five years under various economic growth, real exchange rate, and policy assumptions. It concludes that China is set to continue to be by far the most dominant player in Asia, and to change global markets for wines dramatically, just as it has been doing and will continue to do for so many other products.

Statistics on the wine market in countries where it is not traditionally produced or consumed are estimates using simple methods. In northeast Asia those statistics are exaggerated for a combination of several reasons. One is a labelling issue: imported bulk wine is able to be added to domestically produced wine without the front label having to declare the bottle may contain foreign product. Similar freedom applies to wine made from imported grape juice concentrate. A second (particularly in China) is a double-counting issue: domestic wine produced in one region of the country may be blended with wine produced in and packaged for final sale from another region, with both regions claiming it as their contribution to national wine output. A third possibility is a smuggling issue: some wine re-exports and imports are unrecorded. These possibilities of the wine market being exaggerated are significant for firms seeking to export to and sell in such countries, especially in the fast-growing ones of northeast Asia. This article shows the extent to which estimates for the region could change for such indicators as per capita wine consumption, wine self-sufficiency, and the region’s share of global wine consumption, when alternative assumptions are made in response to these issues.

In their article on the impact of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) on United States wine exports, Heien and Sims (1999) note that the volume of US wine exports to Canada doubled and its value more than trebled between 1988 and 1994 as CUSFTA was progressively implemented. They attribute the remarkable growth in the quantity and quality of that bilateral wine trade somewhat to the preferential removal of the import tariff on U.S. wine but mostly to the removal of some key nontariff import barriers. The latter included discriminatory listing practices (only a small subset of importable wines were listed by the monopolized liquor stores (control boards) in each Canadian province), discriminatory pricing policies (those boards marked up imported wine much more than domestic labels), discriminatory distribution practices (imported wine attracted a higher distribution service charge), and local content rules (domestic labels in British Columbia had to contain at least 80 per cent B.C. wine so as to be eligible for the discriminatory treatment favoring local wines)…

This study analyses the impacts of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduced on 1 July 2000, and the associated wine tax reform, on both the premium and non-premium segments of the grape and wine industry using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Australian economy. Through input cost reductions, the grape and wine industry is projected to gain from the GST tax package. Thus the industry can still gain even though wine consumption is taxed a little more heavily after than before the introduction of the GST. This is particularly so for the export-oriented premium wine segment. A switch from the current ad valorem to a revenue-neutral volumetric tax on wine under the GST is shown also to favour the premium segment of the industry, but at the expense of the non-premium segment.

Nearly all countries tax the domestic consumption of alcoholic beverages. However, the rates of taxation, and the tax instruments used, vary enormously between countries. This study provides estimates, for a wide range of high-income and developing countries, of the consumer tax equivalents (CTEs) of wine, beer and spirits taxes as of 2008. It encompasses wholesale sales taxes, excise taxes and import tariffs expressed both in dollars per litre of alcohol and as a percentage of what the wholesale price would be without those taxes (as many taxes are volumetric and so their percentage CTE rates vary with the price of the product). The wine CTE tends to be lower in countries with a large wine industry, by which standard Australia is shown to have relatively high wine CTEs at least for premium wine. However, because Australia uses a percentage tax rather than the far more commonly used volumetric tax measure, it has a relatively low rate for non-premium wine.

Australia’s rate of wine consumer taxation was shown by Berger and Anderson (1999) to be high by OECD standards in the late 1990s, and especially by the standards of significant wine producing/exporting countries. That was also true when those numbers were updated to 2008 by Anderson (2010). Australia’s type of wine tax is unusual in being ad valorem (a percentage of the wholesale price) rather than specific (in cents per litre of alcohol), so the comparison depends on what price level is the focus of attention…

We provide economy-wide modelling results of the national and regional implications of two current challenges facing the Australian wine industry: a decline in export demand, and a possible change in the tax on domestic wine sales following the Henry Review of Taxation. The demand shock causes regional GDP to fall in the cool and warm wine regions, but not in the hot wine regions unless the shock is large. A change from the current ad valorem tax to a similarly low volumetric tax on domestic wine sales causes regional GDP to rise in the cool and warm wine regions, partly offsetting its fall due to the export demand shock, but GDP in the hot wine regions would fall substantially. The switch to a volumetric tax as high as the standard beer rate would raise tax revenue and lower domestic wine consumption by more than onethird. However, it would induce a one-third decrease in production of non-premium wine as its consumer price would rise by at least threequarters (while the average price of super premium wines would change very little). This would exacerbate the difference in effects of a tax reform on GDP in hot versus warm and cool wine regions.

The European Union’s (EU) long-standing financial support for its wine industry has been nontrivial but very difficult to estimate. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) generic producer support estimate methodology has been able to capture some of the supports, but it excludes such measures as subsidized distillation of lowquality wine, grants to promote wine generically, protection via import tariffs, and grubbing-up premiums. Nor does the OECD disaggregate EU supports to individual member countries. This article provides a new set of more complete estimates of support to EU wine producers. It also reveals how unevenly those supports are spread across EU member countries. The new estimates suggest that during 2007–2012, annual assistance amounted to approximately 700 euros per hectare of vines or 0.15 euros per liter of wine produced in the EU as measured at the winery gate. That is equivalent to a nominal rate of direct plus indirect producer assistance of approximately 20%.

Consumers are always looking for new types of wines. Producers compete for their attention by trying to product differentiate at the same time as they are responding to technological improvements, climate change, and evolving demand patterns. In doing so, wineries are increasingly highlighting their regional and varietal distinctiveness. This paper examines the extent to which the choice of winegrape varieties in wine regions has already changed over the first decade of the twenty-first century in both the Old World and New World. In doing so, it reports a varietal intensity index of different regions and an index of similarity of varietal mix between regions. The study is based on a new database of vine-bearing areas circa 2000 and 2010 for nearly 1,300 DNA-distinct winegrape varieties, spanning over 600 regions in 44 countries that together account for 99 percent of the world’s wine production.

In an ever-more-competitive global market, vignerons compete for the attention of consumers by trying to differentiate their product while also responding to technological advances, climate changes and evolving demand patterns. In doing so, they highlight their regional and varietal distinctiveness. This paper examines the extent to which the winegrape varietal mix varies within and among states of the United States and relative to the rest of the world, and how that picture has been evolving. It reports varietal intensity indexes for different regions, indexes of similarity of varietal mix between regions and over time, and pricebased quality indexes across regions and varieties within and among the three west-coast States. Broadly speaking, the mix of winegrape varieties in the United States is not very different from that in the rest of the world and, since 2000, it has become even less differentiated and closer to that of France and the world as a whole. But individual U.S. regions vary considerably in the mix of varieties in which they specialize and in the quality of grapes they produce of a given variety; and region-by-variety interactions have complex influences on the pattern of quality and production. We use measures of regional varietal comparative advantage and a Nerlovian partial adjustment model to account for some of the shifting varietal patterns in the U.S. vineyard and in winegrape production.

In an ever-more-competitive global market, vignerons compete for the attention of consumers by differentiating their product while responding to technological advances, climate changes and evolving demand patterns. In doing so, they increasingly highlight their regional and varietal distinctiveness. This paper examines the extent to which the mix of winegrape varieties in Australia differs from the rest of the world and differs across wine regions within the country, and how that picture has altered over the first decade of this century. It reports varietal intensity indexes for different regions, indexes of similarity of varietal mix between regions and over time, and quality indexes across regions and varieties within Australia. The study is based mainly on a new global database of vine bearing areas circa 2000 and 2010, supplemented by a more detailed database for Australia back to the 1950s. It reveals that the varietal distinctiveness of Australia vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and varietal differentiation between regions within the country, is far less than for most other countries — a pattern that has become even more pronounced since 2000. It concludes that there is much scope for Australia’s winegrape plantings to become more diversified as producers respond to market and climate changes.

With increasing globalisation and interactions between cultures, countries are converging in many ways, including in their consumption patterns. The extent to which this has been the case in alcohol consumption has been the subject of previous studies, but those studies have been limited in scope to a specific region or group of high-income countries or to just one or two types of alcohol. The present study updates earlier findings, covers all countries of the world since 1961, and introduces two new summary indicators to capture additional dimensions of the extent of convergence in total alcohol consumption and in its mix of beverages. It also distinguishes countries according to whether their alcoholic focus was on wine, beer, or spirits in the early 1960s as well as their geographic regions and their real per-capita incomes. For recent years, we add expenditure data and compare alcohol with soft drink retail expenditure, and we show the difference it makes when unrecorded alcohol volumes are included as part of total alcohol consumption. The final section summarizes our findings and suggests that further research could provide new demand elasticity estimates and use econometrics to explain the varying extents of convergence over time, space, and beverage type.

For millennia, alcoholic drinks have played an important role in food security and health (both positive and negative), but consumption patterns of beer, wine, and spirits have altered substantially over the past two centuries. So too have their production technologies and industrial organization. Globalization and economic growth have contributed to considerable convergence in national alcohol consumption patterns. The industrial revolution contributed to excess consumption by stimulating demand and lowering the cost of alcohol. It also led to concentration in some alcohol industries, especially brewing. In recent years, the emergence of craft producers has countered firm concentration and the homogenization of alcoholic beverages. Meanwhile, governments have intervened extensively in alcohol markets to reduce excessive consumption, raise taxes, protect domestic industries, and/or ensure competition. These regulations have contributed to, and been affected by, the evolving patterns of consumption and changing structures of alcohol industries.