
It’s just one more industry report, but a fairly influential one, and the International Wine & Spirits Report (IWSR, subscription) March issue says that Europe’s importance to wine exporters is waning. The main reason is the continuing fall, now several years old, of wine consumption in Europe, even though it appears the decline is bottoming out. “Just as it takes a tanker a long time to change its course, so too will it take the European market a long time to turn around. It is not expected to reach the bottom of the curve for another five years at least.”
From 2016 to 2021 France, Spain, Australia and South Africa, and in that order for size of the drop, will all see their exports to Europe fall, reports the IWSR. Luckily for producers, the market is becoming more global and wine imports elsewhere will pick up.
Three of the more interesting details in the report are that:
- while “still over 57% of the world’s wine is consumed” in Europe, where the shift from volume to value is softening the blow for some exporters;
- “the momentum of sparkling wine is forecast to slow, while the decline of still wine decline is expected to lose pace – in other words, still wine’s development should improve”, and if you have trouble getting your head around that, sparkling wine is slowly losing its sparkle after a fairly dizzying fizz popularity climb, and we’re less out of love with still wines than we have been;
- Moldavia is the new big name in wine exports, mainly to eastern and central Europe, but its wines and Italian wines are likely to be the two European countries were exports within Europe will grow.
Note that you have a chance to learn about Moldavian wines in April, at Arvinis in Montreux, where the guest of honour is Moldavia.
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