How Many Wines are there in the world? Care to guess?

How many current references there are, i.e., wines produced yearly in a sufficient quantity to be considered for sale to the public (not by allocation, mailing list or at the winery).

I once saw a statistic which said that there were roughly 800,000 different labels of wine produced each year.

Don't know how accurate that is, or how anyone could come to an absolutely determinative answer - when the number is that large, you're probably reduced to statistical sampling rather than actual counting - although I suppose that most national governments are so heavily invested in the regulation & taxation of booze that they might be able to produce the numbers if only the forces of bureaucratic inertia & ineptitude could be overcome.

I'm always staggered at the thought of a Robert Parker tasting 10,000 different bottles a year, but even he is seeing only a tiny fraction of what is lurking out there, waiting to be tasted.

And yes, having been to some local wine festivals, most of it is nauseating, bordering on poisonous.

One of the natural consequences of the consolidation of wholesalers/importers is the rise of craft/boutique wholesalers/importers. This is much like what happened in the beer industry vis a vis production.

Therefore we have labels poking their heads up here and there, but not everywhere. Here is the States we have a politician who always talks about Two Americas. Well, regarding wine there are also Two Americas, the big guys and the little guys. The little suppliers tend to find small, independent retailers, and that's where I like to shop!

There may be almost a million new wines each year, but one thing is almost certain: there are more labels than that. Many wines show up under many different labels and at different prices, but we'll never know which ones they are.

Tens of thousands of wine producers grace the globe (well, they don't all grace it...).