According to full-year trade data recently released by Japanese customs and compiled by Vino Joy News, the country imported 234,418,037 litres of wine in 2025, a 2.29% decrease from 2024. However, the total import value rose 1.47% year-on-year to ¥252,584,739,000 (about $1.68 billion).
Although imports showed the classic pattern of falling volume but rising value, the magnitude of change remained modest, with both movements within three percentage points. This suggests that Japan’s wine market remains highly stable in both scale and demand structure.
With a population of 124 million, Japan continues to be Asia’s largest wine import market, with both import volume and value slightly exceeding those of mainland China, the region’s second-largest market.
The divergence between volume and value reflects two overlapping forces: the market’s longstanding preference for premium wines and the prolonged depreciation of the Japanese yen, which has pushed up the cost of imports.
Akiko Ohara, general manager of Messe Düsseldorf Japan and organiser of ProWine Tokyo, one of the country’s largest wine trade events, shared a similar assessment.
“The recent trend of reduced import volume but increased import value is primarily due to the prolonged weakening of JPY. Still, the increase in value indicates that consumers are unwilling to compromise on wine quality despite rising prices.”
Champagne strengthens France’s dominance
Few Asian markets embrace Champagne quite like Japan.
In 2025, Japan imported ¥105,610,721,000 (US$704 million) worth of sparkling wine, approaching the ¥136,857,014,000 (US$912 million) imported in bottled still wines.
French sparkling wines accounted for ¥89,090,775,000, representing 65.10% of the sparkling wine category. The average import price reached ¥5,590.14 per litre (US$37.27), highlighting the continued strength of Champagne in the market.
Driven in part by Champagne’s momentum, France remained Japan’s largest wine supplier by value, with imports reaching ¥149,505,134,000 (US$997 million) — far ahead of Italy, the second-largest supplier, at ¥31,591,029,000 (US$211 million).
France also leads Japan’s premium wine segment. The average import price of French wine reached ¥2,887.28 per litre (US$19.25), the highest among the top ten supplying countries. The United States ranked second at ¥1,470.18 per litre (US$9.80), followed by New Zealand at ¥1,196.41 per litre (US$7.98).
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