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Viticulture is still a case of Mediterranean countries, although Dionysus´ plant has now "conquered" the countries of northern Europe. It is indicative that the area of ​​vineyards in the EU-28 corresponds to 45% of the world´s total vine area ....

However, three Member States cover ¾ of the EU wine-growing area: Spain, France and Italy.

Vineyards in the EU

According to the most recent Eurostat data (December 2017), the total area under vines cultivated in the EU amounted to 32 million acres in 2015. The viticultural holdings were 2.5 million for 13 acres per holding. Spain, France and Italy accounted for 74.1% of the EU wine-growing area. Portugal (6.1%), Romania (5.7%), Greece and Germany (from 3.2% were the next largest growers with a total share of 18.2%. These were followed by Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia. Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg occupied less than 80,000 acres of vineyards (0,3% of the total area under vines).

Spain, in 2015, had the largest area of ​​vineyards (9.4 million acres). Followed by France with 8 million acres, Italy with 6,5, Portugal with 2 and Greece with 1 million acres.

Viticultural holdings

Two and a half million farms cultivated vines in 2015. More than a third (34.4%, equivalent to 0.9 million farms) was exclusively in Romania. Spain (0,5 million or 20,8%) and Italy (0,4 million or 15,3%) have another one third of EU wine-growing holdings.

Larger holdings with vines are located in France, where more than 8 million acres are distributed to less than 80,000 farms, with a yield of 105 acres per farm. In contrast, Romania (2.1 acres), Croatia (4.4), Slovenia (5.2) and Greece and Cyprus (5.5 acres) are on the other hand.

Varieties

The main vine varieties covered 94.4% of all wine-growing area in the EU in 2015.

52.7% of the area with main varieties consisted of red main varieties and 42.7% of white main varieties. In Greece, the red varieties dominated, while a significant share of the area was covered by varieties of other colors (20.6%), mainly the pink variety "Roditis".

In 2015, the most cultivated main red varieties in the EU were Cabernet Sauvignon (6.7% of all red main varieties), Garnacha tinta, Merlot noir, Bobal, Cabernet franc and Montepulciano.

The most widely cultivated main white varieties in 2015 were Airen (16.4% of all areas with white main varieties), Trebbiano toscano, Chardonnay blanc, Cayetana blanca, Trebbiano, Romagnolo and Verdejo bianco.

The largest red variety of Cabernet Sauvignon and the third largest Merlot noir variety were grown in a large number of countries: Cabernet in 11 Member States and Merlot in 12 Member States. For large white varieties, the geographical spread was much more limited. Airen was cultivated only in Spain, Trebbiano in Italy and France and Cayetana blanca in Spain. Only the Chardonnay variety was more common, as it was cultivated in a total of 12 wine-growing countries.

Age of vines ...

In the EU the old vines dominate the vineyards. 40.7% of the plants were between 10 and 29 years of age, while 37.1% were over 30 years of age. The younger vineyards (aged under 3) accounted for 6.5%, while 15.7% belonged to the age group of 3 to 9 years old.

... and wine quality

In 2015, 82.1% of the EU wine-growing area concerned the production of quality wines (Wines of Protected Designation of Origin or Protected Geographical Indication), while 13.1% of table wines.

Only vineyards for quality wines (PDO & PGI) were cultivated in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Germany and Luxembourg. In Hungary, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and Croatia, the share of the quality wine region was over 90%.

In Romania (72.1%), Bulgaria (38.4%) and Italy (26.2%), the share of area for table wine production was the highest. Greece was the only Member State to have a significant area (38.5%) for raisin production.

Vineyards in Greece

Savvatiano and Roditis are the two most widely grown varieties grown in Greece, while over 85% of the vineyards of which PDO or PGI wines are produced.

According to ELSTAT´s latest data (November 2016), the total area of ​​vineyards in Greece was slightly over one million acres (1,030,821) in 2015, of which 19,000 hectares were covered by non-productive vineyards . The vineyards were the same year 188,873.

Of the total vineyard area, 633.262