China now has more vineyards than France


With 799,000 hectares — or 1.97 million acres — of land set aside for vineyards, China is now the No. 2 wine-growing area in the world.
Spain remains in first place with 1.02 million hectares, but China pushed France down to third place, the BBC reports. The International Organization of Vine and Wine said France still produces the most wine, 4.67 million hectoliters (mhl) a year, and brings in the most money from selling wine abroad (more than $8.4 billion).
The U.S. continues to consume the most wine in the world — 30.7 mhl, or 13 percent of all global wine produced in 2014 — followed by France and Italy. Overall, global wine consumption was down in 2014 by 2.4 mhl, to 240 mhl (6.34 billion gallons).
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.