An exploration of international challenges facing wine sector in Spain

International competitiveness of Spanish and European wines is faced by growing supply, decreasing domestic demand, declining public support, and rising competition from New World producers. Resolving the wine competitiveness crisis will require restructuring processes in production and innovative strategies in trade, particularly external trade. The purpose of this paper is to explore main current and future developments affecting the global wine market and their implications from a Spanish expert viewpoint. After identifying the world wine market’s main features and conditioning regulatory factors, a prospective analysis of international trade and its expected effects on export strategies of the Spanish wine operators is carried out, using a two-stage surveying process accomplished with a representative expert group from different professional backgrounds. Broadly, results indicate that while several tendencies experienced over the last decade will be maintained and/or intensified during the coming years, the major drivers of wine trade and competitiveness will increasingly relate to the role of emerging consumer countries, quality and demand-driven attributes, product differentiation and promotional marketing.