Spain’s wine sector entered the spring with lower production, smaller stocks and weaker exports, according to data from the Interprofessional Wine Organization of Spain, known as OIVE, based on the INFOVI registry for March 2026.
The organization said total wine production in the first eight months of the 2025/26 campaign reached 28.9 million hectoliters, down 7.1% from the same period a year earlier. Must production fell even more sharply, dropping 27.3% to 4.2 million hectoliters. Combined wine and must output stood at 33 million hectoliters, a decline of 10.3%.
March itself was a very quiet month for production, with just 3,631 hectoliters of wine recorded. OIVE said the figures include producers that make fewer than 1,000 hectoliters a year, whose output was reported separately in the expanded November 2025 declaration.
By color, among producers with more than 1,000 hectoliters of output, white wines accounted for 16.2 million hectoliters, down 9.4%, while red and rosé wines totaled 12 million hectoliters, down 4.7%. Producers below the 1,000-hectoliter threshold increased output by 12.1% to 610,555 hectoliters.
Castile-La Mancha remained by far the largest producing region, accounting for 56% of recorded wine production in the first eight months of the campaign and 85% of must output.
The expanded March data also broke production down by product type. Of the 28.2 million hectoliters produced by larger wineries, 10.4 million hectoliters were wines with protected designation of origin, or DOP; 9.5 million hectoliters were varietal wines; 5.5 million hectoliters were wines without any geographic or quality indication; and 2.9 million hectoliters were wines with protected geographical indication, or IGP.
Stocks also moved lower. At the end of March, total wine and unprocessed must inventories held by producers and wholesalers stood at 41.4 million hectoliters, down 4.5% from a year earlier and about 1.9 million hectoliters lower than at the same point in the previous campaign. That figure was also 9.5% below the average of the last five campaigns.
Wine stocks alone fell 4.4% to 37.5 million hectoliters, while unprocessed must stocks declined 5.3% to 3.85 million hectoliters. Among wine stocks, red and rosé wines accounted for 20.3 million hectoliters and white wines for 17.2 million hectoliters. Must stocks included about 0.8 million hectoliters of red and rosé must and 3 million hectoliters of white must.
Castile-La Mancha again led the country in inventories, with 15.8 million hectoliters of wine and must on March 31, equal to 38.1% of total stocks. It was followed by Catalonia with 5.1 million hectoliters and La Rioja with 4.5 million.
The report also showed weaker use of wine for distillation and vinegar production. In the first eight months of the campaign, wineries sent 575,559 hectoliters to distillery and vinegar uses, down 43.5%. Wine sent to distillation fell 51.6% to 381,475 hectoliters, while wine used for vinegar dropped 16% to 194,084 hectoliters.
Wine used in “own operations,” a category that includes aromatized wines, vermouths and sangrias made by wineries themselves, totaled 685,962 hectoliters in the first eight months of the campaign, down 12.5%. In March alone, that category rose slightly to 100,922 hectoliters.
Domestic consumption also softened. OIVE estimated Spanish wine consumption at an annualized rate of 9.3 million hectoliters through March 2026, down 4.3% from a year earlier and equal to a loss of about 418,160 hectoliters.
In March, winery entries of domestic wine rose 7.1% to 2,126,443 hectoliters and exits rose 4.9% to 2,926,141 hectoliters. The net difference between entries and exits narrowed slightly compared with March 2025.
Exports remained under pressure as well. In the first seven months of the campaign through February 2026, Spain exported just over 10 million hectoliters of wine worth €1.5827 billion, according to customs data cited by OIVE and available through February from Spain’s tax agency, AEAT. That represented declines of 8.2% in volume and 6.9% in value from a year earlier.
February was the fifth straight month in which both export value and volume fell year over year. In that month alone, exports dropped to €212.5 million and about 1.4 million hectoliters.
Looking at the rolling year through February 2026, Spanish wine exports totaled €2.8489 billion and 18.4 million hectoliters, both lower than a year earlier.
The report said bottled wines saw declines in both value and volume over that period, while bulk wines lost volume but gained value slightly as average prices rose across both categories.
Imports moved in the opposite direction during the first seven months of the campaign through February: Spain brought in 556,731 hectoliters of wine worth €182.7 million, up in both volume and value from a year earlier as average import prices climbed to €328 per hectoliter.
For the rolling year through February 2026, imports reached €333 million and nearly 928,909 hectoliters as Spain bought less volume but paid more overall because prices increased sharply across several product categories including sparkling wines and wines with DOP designation
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