Paris: The Wine Capital Of The World

Who doesn’t know wine?

Everyone knows wine. Almost everybody knows about wine. In every culture, there are certain principles and values attached to the drinking of wine. Whether it’s the Ancient Chinese wine drinking customs, or the French casual approach: having wine as a necessity rather than a luxury – most cultures of the world have their own manners with wine.

Wine culture as it is is one that is evident in many different cultures around the world today – because drinking fine wine is mutually satisfying for everyone involved. Therefore, you see the effects of this general likeability of wine over all other beverages, like beer, for example, has caused many people to engage in the investment of money and lots of revenue into the wine business within their national territories and internationally as well.

In some cultures, fine wine is kept away from the lower class citizens; either by the outrageous prices attached to the bottles or by direct influence from external constraints – and it is then mostly only enjoyed by the upper-class citizens.

When you’re talking about wine, we all know the countries that stand out with the quality of their bottled greatness. 

We all know the places where expensive fine wine is mostly drunk annually. In this regard, Paris tops the list with their numbers.

Paris has a history that’s deeply rooted in the fine wine drinking culture and leisure moments. Early in the years of war, when the Romans invaded and captured the powers of rulership over key areas in France, some structure was given to most of the French customs, including the way they drink their wine, and this actually brought about a positive change to the wine cultures of strategic locations like Paris, the capital of France, which was greatly affected by those reforms.

Around the 18th century, the French fine wine drinking culture reached its peak leading the rest of the world by top standards that they set over the rest of wine drinkers on earth. In the country itself, Paris had the highest consumption rates of these wines.

Internationally even, Paris tops most of the cities all around the world as the city/region where wine is consumed the most. When the INSEEC business school in France released the results of the research they carried out to find the places in the world where wine was consumed the most, I’m sure it surprised most seasoned wine enthusiasts that the wine region with the finest wine drunk turned out to be Paris, instead of Bordeaux.

Bordeaux is a name that rolls off the tongue of quality wine drinkers like gold. It has been touted in most prestigious halls as the wine capital of the world. So it came as a great shock to many people that the results of the study weren’t revealing Bordeaux as the winner. 

Paris clearly tops the list for the main time and at the moment; the world is again chanting “Paris” and campaigning for the French capital city to be again the wine capital of the world.    

When independent researchers and other concerned wine lovers took off on a quest of discovery, assisted by the L’Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin [International Organisation of Vine and Wine], it was discovered using the data analyzed that the people in Paris consume more than 697 million bottles of wine approximately every year.

The legal drinking age of the citizens in Paris (for wine at least) is 15 years and above. Each legal wine drinker who’s resident in Paris already engages in the healthy consumption of wine, racking up the high numbers of wine business revenue. Not to talk of the revenue generated through the actions of tourists and other international people who visit the city to engage in business or pleasure; all with wine involved. Wine can be integrated to all aspects of life.

So definitely, it won’t be a bad idea to start naming Paris as the wine capital of the world, if you aren’t doing so already. Bordeaux at this point, is not a match for the finery of Paris French wine. To show you how bad it is – the region of Bordeaux (former wine capital of the world) didn’t even make it to the top 10 on the list of cities with high-rates of wine consumption.

Paris is the only city from France on that list; despite France’s standard list of quality wine regions and cities. The reason for that is evident once you give the city of Paris a visit one of these days.

Check out the list of the top 10 wine-drinking cities/regions in the world –

Paris in France(697 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year).

Buenos Achekcires in Argentina (457 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Ruhr in West Germany (385 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

London (369 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

New York (308 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Milan(301 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Los Angeles(241 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Naples(188 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Madrid(181 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

Rome(177 million bottles of wine consumed approximately per year)

The fine wine cities of Italy on the list – Rome, Milan, and Naples – when their consumption rates are added together would still fall in second place behind the city of Paris. That’s how much of a huge gap between that city and all the other cities of the world.

Every culture has its own variants of wine as that it is right now. However, some winemakers from certain parts of the world stand out excellently well from the crowd. On the list of the popular wine-affiliated countries in the world, you will most likely see France and Italy there for a very long time. 

Those two will be topping and dominating that list for years to come with the list of the master winemakers they have.