Russia still dominates Latvia’s alcohol exports / Article

Data showing the export value of different alcoholic drinks shows that in spirits and – perhaps more surprisingly – wines, Latvia ranks quite highly.

In 2024, to countries outside the European Union, Latvia exported 34 million euros’ worth of beer, 129 million euros’ worth of wine, 45 million euros’ worth of fortified wines, 3.8 million euros’ worth of cider and a colossal 389 million euros’ worth of spirits.

To provide some context it is worth comparing those figures with fellow Baltic states Estonia and Lithuania. Extra-EU beer exports are worth just 2 million euros to Estonia but 44 million to Lithuania.

On wine however, Latvia is way ahead of Estonia’s 1.3 million euros and Lithuania’s 32 million euros.

On fortified wine too, Latvia leads the way (Estonia exports just 14,000 euros’ worth, Lithuania manages 2.6 million euros’ worth), but on cider both Estonia (5 million euros) and Lithuania (18 million euros) outdo Latvia.

When it comes to spirits though, Latvian exports dwarf those of its neighbors. Estonia’s exports are worth just 3.2 million euros and Lithuania’s are worth 57 million euros – still a small fraction of Latvia’s 389 million euro extra-EU export value.

But where do all those wines and spirits go? That, too makes for interesting reading. 

121 million euros’ worth of wine went to Russia and 3.4 million euros’ worth went to Belarus. The only other countries to receive more than 1 million euros’ worth of Latvian wine were countries bordering Russia: Georgia (1.1 million euros), Kazakhstan (1.1 million euros) and Uzbekistan (1.2 million euros).

Similar patterns can be seen in the other drinks categories. Russia accounts for almost all the exports of fortified wines (45 million euros) with Belarus adding another 145,000 euros of exports, Georgia 345,000 euros’ worth, Kazakhstan 68,000 euros and Uzbekistan 42,000 euros. Exports to Ukraine in this category are worth just 30,000 euros.

In the biggest category of all, spirits, the main export destinations outside the EU are: Russia (261 million euros), Ukraine (45 million euros), Kazakhstan (20 million euros), Georgia (12 million euros), the United States (12 million) and Belarus (6.2 million).

Taking all countries of the world into account, Latvia’s exports of spirits are worth nearly half a billion euros (490,921,759 euros to be precise). 

No European Union sanctions are in place on food and drink exports to the aggressor states, so the trade is perfectly legal, if morally questionable.

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