Ditton Wine Traders’ fine wine blog

Le Comite Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) have recently released figures for worldwide Champagne Exports. According to Wine Industry Report, sales in pretty much all developed Champagne markets fell. As expected, Russia (+28%) and China (+36%) grew. Although these are impressive increases, it is an increase on a relatively low baseline figure and not nearly enough to come close to offsetting the declines in the 2 biggest markets: the UK – the biggest export market with nearly 36m bottles – declined by nearly 8% whereas the USA – the worldwide number 2 with 17m bottles saw sales decline by an impressive 20%. Here's an extract of the report Champagne exports in 2008 (compared to 2007):

France: 181,209,546 bottles -3.59%
Export: 141,244,306 bottles: -6.37%
Total: 322,453,852: -4.82%

Rank | Country | Jan-Dec 2008 | % change

1 | UK | 35,984,574 bottles | -7,86%
2 | USA | 17,193,526 bottles | -20,85%
3 | Germany | 11,573,597 bottles | -10,38%
4 | Belgium | 9,910,581 bottles | -0,40%
5 | ItalyE | 9,438,811 bottles | -8,78%
6 | Japan | 8,332,233 bottles | -9,14%
7 | Switzerland | 5,439,009 bottles | -10,36%
8 | Spain | 4,090,505 bottles | -10,54%
9 | Australia | 3,648,022 bottles | 10,25%
10 | Netherlands | 3,511,889 bottles | -13,97%

14 | Russia | 1,326,316 bottles | 28.34%
16 | Austria | 1,210,260 bottles | 13.47%
17 | Hong Kong | 1,036,901 bottles | 13.83%
18 | China | 896,896 bottles | 36.68%
36 | India | 246,698 bottles | -6,77%

Source : Comité interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne