A study from the French government agriculture office, FranceAgriMer, released Thursday, indicates that France remains the most important wine supplier to China, but it is losing market share in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.
It is on the American market that France is suffering its most worrying decline, achieving only 27 percent of the market by volume in 2013 compared to 36 percent in the year 2000. However, due to increased wine consumption in America, the actual volume of wine imported from France has actually increased almost threefold.
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"France, which was in second position in 2000 behind Italy, is today the fourth most important wine supplier to America after Italy, Australia and Chile," explained Axelle Cloarec, who directed the AgriMer study. For around a decade, total exports to America from Italy and Spain have increased, while those from France have remained static.
However, France is still leading the pack for wine sales in China, now the world’s fifth largest consumer of wine. It remains ahead of Chile, Spain and Australia, maintaining the same proportion of sales as last year (36 percent by volume) although the total volume of wine imported into China dropped for the first time. However, in value France’s sales to China dropped by 13 percent, the first fall in more than a decade.
On the German market, France has lost six percentage points since 2000 and over the same period in Britain sales fell by 10 percentage points. In the U.K., France accounts for only 16 percent of the wine market (down from 26 percent in 2000), against 21 percent for Italy, whose sales have increased by one third.
Figures for 2013 indicate that worldwide French wine exports remained stable, but during the first nine months of the campaign period to July 2014, they were down by about five percent in volume and three percent in value.
The trade in Champagne, however, often seen as a barometer for the health of the economy, is good. It currently accounts for 32 percent of French wine exports by value and eight percent by volume. Both figures saw a slight increase, which accounts in part for the recent announcement from the Champagne region that the maximum yield allowance for the 2014 harvest has been set at a relatively high level.
