France recorded its lowest wine production since 1957, with volumes below 34 million hectoliters as of September 1, 2026. The French Ministry of Agriculture announced a 6% drop compared to 2025, when 35.9 million hectoliters were produced, and a 17% drop compared to the 2021-2025 average. The country remains the world's second largest wine producer, behind only Italy.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture's statistics service, called Agreste, the reduction in production is due both to the decrease in cultivated areas and to low vine yields. Adverse weather conditions, including drought and heat waves that hit the country during the summer, significantly damaged the harvests.
The estimated production of 33.9 million hectoliters represents one of the smallest harvests in the last 30 years in France. The hectoliter is a unit of measurement equivalent to 100 liters. Agreste highlights that these figures place 2026 among the worst-performing years for the French wine sector in the last three decades.
