The UK remains the biggest export market for Champagne, with shipments up almost 5.9% last year to almost 34 million bottles. Total world shipments for Champagne, including the French market, grew by 5.3% to almost 340 million bottles.
The economic downturn is being seen as a threat to Champagne sales, with shipments to the USA, the number two export market, down more than 6% to 21.7 million bottles in 2007.
Champagne producers are looking to the fast-growing economies of China and India to more than off-set any problems in the more traditional markets such as Europe and North America.
It was announced last week that the borders of the Champagne region will be expanded with the addition of 40 new villages to meet this anticipated increase in demand. The full list of new districts is expected to be published next week.
Cost and duty rises – and the strong euro – could add up to an extra £2 a bottle to the more premium-priced Champagnes on sale in the UK in 2008, just as the world economy is poised to fall into recession.
Keith Isaac, managing director at Patriarche Wine Agencies, the importer of De Castelnau, said that during the last recession in the early 1990s, UK sales of Champagne “fell off the cliff” just after producers pushed through price increases.
“It’s certainly a worry,” he said.
There was so much Champagne in the trade in the early to mid-1990s, he said, that the major multiples were able to snap up supplies and sell it at knock-down prices of £7 and £8 a bottle.
Philippa Carr, head of wine selection at Asda, said Champagne sales were currently “buoyant” through the supermarket chain, following Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and with Easter coming up this weekend.
by Mike Dennis
