The survey some of whose findings have already been reported by delWine is carried out every two years by Vinexpo, 6-8 months prior to the wine show held in June every alternate year. 'This study was made at the end of last year, when the crisis was not so evident, but even so, we have seen these crises before, and the effect on wine consumption was not so high,' reportedly says Vinexpo CEO Robert Beynat.
An interesting aspect of the study is that the sale of sparkling wine in the UK is set to increase by more than 20% over the next three years with white recording a 7% rise, while red wine purchases will drop by nearly 5%. Rosé sales will rise by a whopping 50% and white wine sales by over 7% according to Decanter.
By volume, wine consumption in the UK is predicted to increase by 6.87%, from 145.1m cases in 2008 to 155m by 2012. By value, the increase is estimated to be 7.25%. This is contradictory to the earlier reports by many experts and sellers that the Brits are trading down, drinking cheaper wines.
Beynat attributed the increase in white wine to an emergence of younger wine drinkers. His comments, 'The world is drinking more, and the world is drinking better. The world will not stop drinking wine,' are perhaps also motivated by a sense of wish and passion.
The study should be a soothing comfort for wine producers and importers in India who seem to have been stressed with a recent crash in demand. What is surprising, however, is that the trend of growing rose and sparkling wine sales including Champagne has been consistently lagging the international trends particularly in UK where Rose & Champagne are available as house wine by the glass in most places- and many restaurants offer more than one label by the glass. |