This Tiny Country Drinks More Wine Than Anywhere In The World

Henry Fournier

When it comes to the country that loves wine the most, it’s not about the size of the region, or how big the population is. And it’s not the number of vineyards either, which means the answer isn’t France, Italy, or the United States — where a single state, California, produces at least 85 percent of the wine for the entire country.

Milada Vigerova

Rather, the nation that consumes the most wine per capita is the tiny principality of Andorra, a “landlocked microstate” bordered by France and Spain that is also the sixth-smallest country in all of Europe, with an area of 181 square miles and a population of just under 70,000 people. In this tiny nation-state, where the official language is Catalan, Andorrans consumed roughly four million liters of wine in 2016 — or 76 bottles per person, per year.

The next most lushy countries were Vatican City, which has previously taken top honors in this category, followed by Croatia, Portugal, and France.

Alina Sofia

By comparison, Americans drank a total of 913 million gallons in 2015, when the population was approximately 320 million. That works out to 2.83 gallons per person, though this figure is not based on citizens of legal drinking age, which makes the real number even higher.