111 million litres of wine imported in 2020

Ireland imported over 111 million litres of wine valued at €346 million last year, an increase of 44% on the 2015 level of imports of 77 million litres according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office.

Over two-thirds of our total wine imports came from just five countries according to the CSO’s Trade in Goods 2020 report which analyses Ireland’s exports and imports for 2020.

The largest of these was France. We imported €61 million-worth of wine into Ireland from France followed by Chile with €58 million-worth of wine imports. While the value of imports from France only exceeded that of Chile by under €3 million, Chile exported 19.5 million litres of wine to Ireland compared to 14 million litres in French imports according to the CSO.

As a global wine trading hub, the UK was responsible for some 14 million litres of wine imports here together with Australia (14m litres) and Italy (13m litres).

The CSO also found that Ireland imported 61 million litres of mineral water.

In all, Ireland imported €87 billion-worth of goods in 2020 and exported €162 billion-worth.

 

Beer

2020’s beer exports were valued at €255 million, which in volume terms represented 444 million litres. The main export market was the UK, responsible for 309 million litres of beer, 70% of the total volume exported last year.

Ireland also imported 335 million litres of beer last year at a value of €250 million of which 198 million litres (or €150 million-worth) came from the UK, also our largest import partner.

“This is over four times the volume of the second-biggest import partner, the Netherlands, from which we imported 48 million litres,” states the CSO.