Terroir costs money, and that cost varies between designations of origin by a factor of almost eight. On 19 June 2026, the Organización Interprofesional del Vino de España (OIVE) presented the third phase of its research into the cost of grape production. The multi-year study now covers 54 designations of origin and 46 grape varieties. For Phase III, the Universitat Politècnica de València collected new data across 17 Denominaciones de Origen (DO), the Spanish designation of origin.
Terroir is human work
Van Leeuwen and Seguin argued in their 2006 paper that human factors form part of terroir: history, socio-economic conditions and the techniques applied in vineyard and cellar. They illustrated the point with Paris. In 1820, the wine region around the capital produced 4.8 million hectolitres on 24,000 hectares, despite a less favourable climate than in the south. The city itself formed the market. Once the Paris-Lyon-Marseille railway began bringing in wine from the south, that viticulture largely disappeared.
Bordeaux shows the reverse movement. In the seventeenth century, Château Haut-Brion sold wine under its own name because owner Arnaud de Pontac believed it was worth a higher price than the wines of other estates in Pessac. In 2010, the Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (OIV) incorporated that human layer into its official definition: terroir includes the knowledge of the interaction between environment and applied viticultural practices.
What a kilo of grapes really costs
The cost gap between Ribeiro and Yecla runs to almost eight times per hectare and just over three times per kilo of grapes. Ribeiro tops the list at €12,997 per hectare and €1.28 per kilo. The Spanish average stands at €4,025 per hectare and €0.64 per kilo. Ribeiro, new to this phase of the study, pulls that average up on its own: without this designation, it drops to €3,525 per hectare.
The per-kilo figures correct the per-hectare picture. Yecla costs €0.40 per kilo, more than La Mancha (€0.32) and Almansa (€0.20). The OIVE figures imply a yield of roughly 4,100 kilos per hectare in Yecla and 10,150 kilos in Ribeiro.
A kilo of grapes turns out cheap or expensive through the combination of hectare costs and yield. Ribeiro shows that even a high yield does not automatically offset an expensive production structure.
Yield is therefore only one side of the equation. More grapes per hectare can push down the cost per kilo, as long as the extra production does not drive costs up just as fast. For viticulture that balance is difficult to strike, because limiting yield is itself often used as a tool for quality.
The tension lies between cost efficiency and quality ambition. A vineyard that deliberately produces less in pursuit of quality can end up paying more per kilo than a plot with a much higher yield.
Rueda comes in at €0.42 per kilo and Ribera del Duero at €0.88. Jerez combines high costs with high yields, and according to OIVE that sets it apart from the other regions. One likely reason: the vineyards there had just recovered after several years of drought, while trellising and fertilisation costs rose sharply at the same time.
What the grower decides
In Ribeiro, crop protection forms the largest cost item: €3,128 per hectare.
The report itself cites strong fungal pressure in the wet spring of 2024 in Ribeiro, which required more intensive treatment. OIVE also links high cost patterns in humid regions to differences in altitude and steep slopes, labour intensity and limited scope for mechanisation.
Within the same growing form, costs still differ between designations of origin. OIVE attributes that to local conditions as well as to choices made in the vineyard.
In Alicante, harvest costs rose by 56 percent, while spending on crop protection fell by 47 percent. In Utiel-Requena, irrigation costs dropped by 90 percent. Such shifts show that growers adjust their work and spending to season, plot and farm management.
Who pays for the kilo?
Since the 2021 tightening of Spain’s food chain law, the price a primary producer receives must exceed his effective production costs. Ley 16/2021 amended the existing Ley 12/2013 to that effect. An additional provision under Article 12 carries that principle through the whole chain: every link must pay the one before it at least its actual production costs.
Spanish law protects the grower against selling below cost price. That creates an odd economic incentive: a producer with high costs has a higher price floor than a more efficient neighbour.
That makes cost data necessary, but also economically uncomfortable. The law protects weak bargaining positions, while at the same time removing part of the usual pressure toward efficiency from the market.
The OIVE study fits that picture. It gives wine producers and buyers an objective point of reference, and the Gesvid app, launched in 2022, lets any grower calculate his own costs. The figures let growers compare their production costs. They are not purchase prices.
From vineyard to shop shelf
The average Dutch import value in the first nine months of 2025 stood at €3.91 per litre. That is the customs value, excluding excise duty and VAT, and 10.7 percent more than a year earlier. Converted, that comes to €2.93 per 0.75-litre bottle. Import volume shrank over the same period by 12.7 percent, to 265.3 million litres.
Spain was the third-largest supplier by value over those same nine months, with €137.3 million in wine exports to the Netherlands, 0.1 percent more than a year earlier.
The arithmetic of the kilo
For Ribeiro, the production rules allow a maximum of 72 to 74 litres of wine per 100 kilos of grapes. That works out to roughly 1.35 to 1.4 kilos of grapes per litre of wine. On that basis, the grapes in Ribeiro represent about €1.73 to €1.79 per litre of wine, and in Yecla €0.54 to €0.56. In Ribeiro, the grapes alone already account for roughly 44 to 46 percent of the average Dutch import value, before vinification, packaging and transport. The comparison stays indicative, since that import value covers all countries of origin and wine categories combined.
High grape costs put pressure on the five-to-ten-euro bottle. Room for vinification, packaging, distribution and margin shrinks, which makes a higher selling price economically more attractive. High grape costs therefore increase the pressure to sell the wine in a higher price bracket. For the grower, it is a matter of survival.
In the end, the consumer decides
Terroir is also an economic concept. Soil and climate determine the possibilities; labour, yield and choices in the vineyard determine what it costs to make use of them.
Spanish law ties the contract price to the grower’s own production costs. Within those rules, producers go looking for lower costs, higher yields and a selling price that keeps their business viable. What matters here too is which choices are made in the vineyard, and what of that eventually ends up in the bottle.
Higher production costs are no guarantee of quality. Neither is a low-cost price. The bills do not disappear through legislation either. Part of the cost eventually reaches the consumer, through a higher price or through smaller margins elsewhere in the chain.
That is where the real test begins. A consumer does not have to accept a higher price. He can buy less wine, choose a cheaper alternative or drop out altogether. The law then protects the grower against too low a price, while demand for his wine can come under even more pressure.
That brings the terroir question back to the market. The law can require a grower not to sell his grapes below his production costs. It cannot require a consumer to pay whatever price the bottle asks.
Sources
Organización Interprofesional del Vino de España (OIVE) / Universitat Politècnica de València, Estudio de costes de producción de uva para la elaboración de vinos en España, Fase III, December 2025, 2024/2025 campaign. Results publicly presented by OIVE on 19 June 2026.
Van Leeuwen, C. and Seguin, G. (2006), ‘The concept of terroir in viticulture‘, Journal of Wine Research, 17(1), 1-10.
OIVE analysis of Dutch customs figures, first nine months of 2025 (via Vinetur).
Winecastr.com, ‘The Dutch wine market after 2025: fewer litres, higher prices‘ (In Dutch, 2 March 2026).
FAQ
Why does grape production in Ribeiro cost so much more than in Yecla?
Ribeiro faced much higher costs for crop protection and labour in the 2024/2025 campaign. Fungal pressure was elevated in the wet spring, while differences in altitude and steep slopes limit mechanisation. Yecla operates under drier conditions and has lower per-hectare costs.
Why do costs per kilo matter more than costs per hectare?
A hectare says little without the yield attached to it. Cost per kilo comes from the combination of hectare costs and the number of kilos of grapes that hectare produces. Ribeiro combines a high yield per hectare with high costs per kilo. There, the production costs per hectare weigh more heavily than the benefit of the higher yield.
Is a Spanish grower allowed to sell grapes below his cost price?
Under Spain’s food chain law, the contract price a primary producer receives must exceed his effective production costs. The law ties the price to the individual producer’s own costs, not to a single national minimum price.
Do higher production costs also mean better wine?
No. High costs can come from steep slopes, fungal pressure, labour, low mechanisation or deliberate quality choices, but they prove nothing about quality. An expensive vineyard can produce excellent wine, but also mediocre wine. The consumer ultimately buys the bottle, not the cost price.
This article first appeared in Dutch on Winecastr.com. The English version was translated with AI support and checked before publication.
Last updated: 24 September 2026