The Catalan Wine Agency, INCAVI, has released its annual report on Catalan wines for 2025 and the summary is that there’s “general stability” which is about as good a news as anyone can hope for in the current market. This was also covered in this year’s Catalunya Report.
In raw terms, overall volume down a bit with a 4% drop in volume and 1% drop in value compared to 2024. These would be worrying numbers were it not for the fact there was an 8% global drop in 2024. So, like many regions, it’s showing something of a stabilization in terms of the reduction of sales volume and this despite there not being a reduction in vineyard surface such as the case in French regions such as Bordeaux.
Is it good news? Well, it’s about as good of a news as one can hope for in the current market. The real issue here is that value is not stepping up to match the drop in volume as in the, “drink less but better” mantra. But what’s worrying is that the aforementioned drop is in terms of wine overall in Catalunya and there’s a a considerable amount sold that’s not from the region, but instead others such as Rioja. The numbers change slightly when looking just at Catalan DO wine in that it’s a 4.6% drop in volume and 3.4% drop in value.
The only positive in this is that it’s not the more upper-end DOs that are losing out. For example, DOQ Priorat has risen 0.9% in volume and 2.0% in value. That’s not insignificant given that it sports some of the most expensive wines in all of Spain. So, where is the loss coming from? Again, as talked about in the Catalunya Report, it’s DO Catalunya which is huge and unfortunately rather amorphous, so it was always going to suffer in terms of drink less but better.
There’s talk about some of the initiatives that INCAVI has taken on in terms of promoting Catalan wine. To be fair, much is out of their hands as there’s simply too much headwind in the sector to market one’s way out of this issue. More money should be put into restructuring and tearing out lesser vines to continue the quality boost instead of just dishing out grants to distill it away when there’s too much at the end of the year.
In unofficial channels, there’s long-been a proposal to create a “Catalan Wine House” in Barcelona which, if done well and not just staffed with connected locals, but competent wine people, it would do tremendous work to promote the wines of the region. As shown by a Master’s these I read on marketing wine regions in Catalunya, if you walk into the tourism office in Plaça Catalunya (ie, the most central one in the city) and ask about visiting wine regions, the staff might mention Penedès, but that’s about it. Having a promotional base for Catalan wines, in the capital, with year-round tasting events, would do tremendously more for the sector than presenting them at a one-off city fair such as the Mercè celebrations each year, which is really just for locals.
While it’s clear wine is selling and it’s not the end of the world, this report shows that there remains serious work to keep Catalan wines forging ahead.
