Production and export, French bubbles in crisis.
Italian sparkling wines go well
To cope with the crisis, this year the Champagne will reduce its production by 44 percent in the number of bottles. This vintage wine growers and bottlers of Champagne have decided to collect 32 percent of grapes less. And only 82 percent of the grapes can be bottled, the rest will be stored, waiting for a recovery of sales, resulting in a reduction of 44 percent in the number of bottles produced.
According to data of Coldiretti, it will instead be 300 millions the number of bottles produced by the Italian sparkling wine, while their cousins from beyond the Alps down to 260 million, sharply down from 322 million in 2008 and 339 million in 2007.
The historic reversal of the case – states Coldiretti – in the first year of production of Prosecco with a designation of origin (DOC) and Colli Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco and Prosecco Islanders (DOCG), which are rapidly gaining foreign markets .
Italians are better even in the export. Exports of French champagne have fallen by 41 per cent, while the export of Italian sparkling wines are up of 15 percent, says Coldiretti based on the data of the French Federation of Exporters of Wines and Spirits (LVEF) and the National Forum on sparkling wines for the first six months of 2009.
As a result of growth in foreign demand, exports of Italian sparkling wine abroad – continues Coldiretti – have exceeded domestic consumption by implementing a total annual turnover of over 2.5 billion euros for a production of over 300 million bottles.