Where in the world are various winegrape varieties grown? Evidence from a new database

An important way in which producers seek to boost their competitiveness in the wake of wine's globalization is to exploit their geographical and varietal distinctiveness. Yet until now there has not been a global compendium of data to show which varieties are grown in what regions. The purpose of this paper is to alert readers to a new, freely available, database that provides such information in a form that makes comparisons easy. It reports vine bearing areas in two periods (circa 2000 and 2010) for more than 2000 varieties, of which nearly 1,300 are ‘primes' and the rest are their synonyms. The data refer to more than 500 regions in 44 countries that together account for 99 percent of the world's wine production. To aid use of the database, there is an accompanying e-book that contains dozens of charts and more than 150 tables that report shares and other indicators to summarize developments in winegrape bearing areas over the first decade of this millennium.