How Much Sekt Do Germans Drink? Consumption Figures

How Much Sekt Do Germans Drink per Capita?

The best-known figure comes from the German Sparkling Wine Producers Association (VDS), based on data from the Federal Statistical Office. It puts 2024 sparkling wine consumption at 3.6 liters per person aged 16 and over. At a standard 0.75-liter bottle, that's just under five bottles a year. This figure covers all sparkling wine, so besides German Sekt it also includes Champagne, Cava, Crémant, and Prosecco Spumante.

An average, of course, masks how differently people actually drink. Many households buy Sekt mainly for New Year's Eve, birthdays, and weddings, while others don't buy it at all. Incidentally, semi-sparkling wine like Prosecco Frizzante or Secco doesn't count as sparkling wine in tax statistics, since it stays below 3 bar of pressure. Its consumption therefore comes on top of this figure.

Is Germany the Sekt World Champion?

By volume, yes—at least according to the last major sparkling wine study by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). It put global consumption in 2018 at 19 million hectoliters, about 8 percent of total wine consumption. Germany led the pack with 3.2 million hectoliters, roughly 17 percent of the total. France and the US followed, each with 2.6 million hectoliters.

This doesn't prove a per-capita world record, though. The total volume also reflects the sheer size of the country. Our sources don't contain comparable per-capita figures for other countries, so the claim stands as follows: Germany is the world's largest sparkling wine market by volume, not demonstrably the country with the thirstiest Sekt drinkers.

How Many Bottles of Sekt Are Sold in Germany?

For the producers themselves, the VDS reports around 203 million bottles of German-made Sekt sold between January and November 2025, down 4.5 percent year on year. This figure covers only member companies, which nonetheless account for about 95 percent of domestic production.

A second perspective comes from tax statistics. According to the Federal Statistical Office, around 240.1 million liters of sparkling wine were taxed for domestic sale in Germany in 2025, while another 41.4 million liters went tax-free into exports. The taxed volume also includes imports such as Champagne, Cava, and Prosecco Spumante. According to this data, 2024 sales were about 19.5 percent below the 2014 level. The trend has clearly been pointing downward for years.

Why don't the bottle and liter figures match up? They measure different things. The association counts bottles that its members produce in Germany, regardless of whether they're sold domestically or abroad, and excluding imported Champagne or Cava. Tax statistics count liters that enter the German market with tax paid, regardless of where the sparkling wine was made. Exports appear separately there because they remain tax-free. Anyone reading Sekt consumption figures should therefore always check whether the number refers to German production, domestic sales, or per-capita consumption.

Alcohol-Free Sekt Grows Against the Trend

One category, however, is growing. Alcohol-free alternatives reached 19.1 million bottles in 2025 according to the VDS, up 9 percent. These typically start as a regular wine, from which the alcohol is gently removed, after which carbon dioxide is added back in. Legally, this isn't Sekt, since Sekt is a quality sparkling wine whose carbon dioxide comes from fermentation and which must have at least 3.5 bar of pressure.

With classic Sekt, one factual point is worth noting: carbonation can speed up alcohol's absorption into the bloodstream. A small 2003 study at the University of Surrey with 12 participants found higher blood alcohol levels after five minutes with sparkling Champagne compared to the same Champagne with the bubbles removed. Drunk slowly and with food, blood alcohol rises less steeply, since the stomach then releases the alcohol more gradually.