America Is the Top Consumer of Wine in the World

America officially dethroned France as the number one largest market for wine in the world last year. France is not only eating less baguettes, but the country is also drinking less wine. According to Reuters, France fell into second place for wine consumption for the first time in 2013. In 2013 American consumption went up .05% with US consumers buying 29.1 million hectoliters of wine, while the French only bought 28.1 Million hectoliters, meaning consumption in France fell almost 7%.

While America might be top dog when it comes to total amount of wine bought, the amount consumed per person is minimal compared to France. According to a report from the World Health Organization, "Europe is the region with the highest consumption of alcohol per capita." The average French person manages to down 1.2 bottles every week which is about six times as much as the average American. Even with France's per capita consumption of wine falling more than 20 percent between 2002 and 2011 the amount of wine consumed per person was quite high. The French were drinking 46.4 liters of wine each on average in 2011, which is over four times the 9.1 liters the average American consumed.

The rise of wine consumption in the United States doesn't look like it will be slowing down anytime soon with many chains increasing their wine offerings. Coffee giant Starbucks, which has 11,407 stores across the US, is testing selling wine in the evening and plans to bring "alcohol to thousands of stores in the near future." Or perhaps the real reason consumption rates are up are because of all those wine-laced milkshakes from Red Robin.

· USA Becomes World Biggest Wine Market [Reuters]
· Alcohol-Related Deaths and Diseases [WHO]
· All Wine Coverage on Eater [-E-]