Spain 2017's biggest wine exporter beating both Italy and France

Spanish wineries led the world's wine exportation of the red stuff in 2017 with sales of 22.8 million hectoliters, according to data released by the Spanish Observatory of Wine Markets.

This puts the country ahead of its main competitors Italy (21 million hectoliters) and France (15 million hectoliters).

However, for all the wine trickling out of the country, Spain only made EUR2,850 million in revenue, whereas France brought home over triple this figure (EUR9,000 million) and Italy billed over double (EUR6,000 million).

This is because Spain sells its produce very cheaply at 1.25 per litre, compared to France's EUR6 per litre and Italy's 2.78.

In fact, Spain sells its wine off the cheapest, with only South African wines sold at a lower price (1.23 per litre) and far from wines further afield, such as Australian (EUR3.1 per litre) or Chilean (1.89 per litre).

The availability of cheap vino hasn't harmed the reputation of Spanish wine, Rafael del Rey, general manager of the Spanish Observatory of Wine Markets, told Euronews.

"The average (quality) of Spanish wines packed in many of the final consumer markets is a reasonably good average," he said.

Nonetheless, he admitted Spain has some way to go if it wants to equal the reputation of its Mediterranean neighbours: "It is true that we are relatively far from French and Italian and this is fundamentally due to the greater experience the French and Italians have in the international markets compared to the Spanish market."

The main challenge facing Spain is reducing the sale of cheap, mass-produced wine, which is flooding the market regardless of demand and the presence of internal structures to deal with the commodity.

Bulk production of wine has, however, declined in recent years - in 2017 it represented 12.6 million hectoliters in sales, compared to 10.2 million hectoliters of bottled wines, according to Spain's El Pais website .

The overall picture for Spanish viticulturists and the rest of the industry is looking brighter: in 2017 Spanish exports grew by 2.5% in volume and 7.6% in turnover, due to a price increase of 5%.