According to numbers released yesterday by international wine industry website Vitisphere.com, Spain is leading the way in global bio wine production as Italy and France play catch-up.
 

“Unsurprisingly, global production of organic wine is dominated by the world's three largest wine producing nations: Spain, Italy and France,” the article said. “These three countries boasted 84,000, 68,000 and 64,000 hectares of organic vineyards respectively in 2013.”
 

According to the story, these numbers are the result of each of these three countries devoting more acreage to their eco-friendly wines.
 

“(They) have showed impressive growth rates in acreage converted to organic since 2008: +172% for Spain, +68% for Italy and +129% for France,” the article said.
 

Elisabeth Mercer, director of Agence Bio, a French organization committed to organic agriculture, told Vitisphere the organic market should no longer be considered just a novelty.
 

“Organic can no longer be considered a niche,” she said during a recent conference. “The category has moved forward and is gaining traction due to positive market signals which are encouraging conversion.”
 

The article pointed out some interesting anomalies in the market. For instance, though Spain produces 27 percent  of the world's organic wine, the country's wine drinkers only consume one percent of that production.

“Hence, Spanish organic wines are primarily bound for export, partly due to shrinking domestic wine consumption, organic or otherwise,” the article noted.
 

The opposite is true of France, Mercer said.
 

The French produce 22 percent of the world's organic wine and the country's wine drinkers consume about 21 percent of the world's organic wine.
 

“Sixty percent of organic wines grown in France are consumed in the country,” Mercer said. “the French market has a varied distribution structure, focusing on cellar door sales … and specialist stores.”
 

The results from the 2015 Challenge Millésime BIO, the premier international organic wine competition, indicate that Spain, Italy and France also dominate, in terms of quality.
 

Of the competition's 39 gold medal winners in the red wine category, Spain, Italy or France took home 37 medals. A pair of Portuguese wines were the only two wines not produced in the world's leading trio.
 

Of the 37 medals won by Spain, Italy and France, 23 of those medals went to France's wines. Spain took home 10 gold medals for their reds while Italy was able to take home 10 gold medals.