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Santé! France enjoys record year for wine and spirits exports

French exports of wine and spirits jumped by more than a billion euros last year to strike a record level, driven by a surge in sales of cognac, a trade body said Wednesday.

Published: 14 February 2018 12:09 CET

Santé! France enjoys record year for wine and spirits exports

Photo: AFP

The number of 12-bottle cases shipped abroad rose by 5 percent to 198.6 million, while in terms of value exports climbed by 8.5 percent to 12.9 billion euros ($15.9 billion), according to data from the Federation of French Wine and Spirits Exporters (FEVS).

Exports of cognac led the growth, climbing by 8.7 percent in volume and 10.8 percent in value.

Exports of wine also perked up in 2017, having been held in check the previous four years due to fierce price competition, rising by six percent in volume and 9.6 percent in value.

While exports to fellow EU members returned to growth last year, but most of the expansion was due to sales further afield, in particular North America and Asia.

Shipments to the United States climbed by 10 percent to over three billion euros, making it the top export market for French wine and spirits.

Exports to China shot 25 percent higher to more than 1.2 billion euros due to the growth of the middle class and urbanisation of the population.

Spain has second highest rate of daily alcohol drinkers in EU

Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP

Thirteen percent of people in Spain drink alcohol every day, a similar rate to Italy, where 12 percent enjoy a tipple on a daily basis, and only behind Portugal, where 20 percent of people have an alcoholic drink seven days a week.

That puts Spaniards above the EU average of 8.4 percent daily drinkers, data published by Eurostat in July 2021 reveals.

This consistent alcoholic intake among Spaniards is far higher than in countries such as Sweden (1.8 percent daily drinkers), Poland (1.6 percent), Norway (1.4 percent), Estonia (1.3 percent) and Latvia (1.2 percent).

However, the survey that looked at the frequency of alcohol consumption in people aged 15 and over shows that weekly and monthly drinking habits among Spaniards are more in line with European averages.

A total of 22.9 percent of respondents from Spain said they drunk booze on a weekly basis, 18.3 percent every month, 12.5 percent less than once a month, and 33 percent haven’t had a drink ever or in the last year.

Furthermore, another part of the study which looked at heavy episodic drinking found that Spaniards are the third least likely to get blind drunk, after Cypriots and Italians.

The Europeans who ingested more than 60 grammes of pure ethanol on a single occasion at least once a month in 2019 were Danes (37.8 percent), Romanians (35 percent), Luxembourgers (34.3 percent) and Germans (30.4 percent).

The UK did not form part of the study but Ireland is included.

Overall, Eurostat’s findings reflect how the Spanish habit of enjoying a glass of wine with a meal or a small beer (caña) outdoors with friends continues to be common daily practice, even though 13 percent does not make it prevalent.

Spaniards’ tendency to drink in moderation also continues to prevail, even though a 2016 study by Danish pharmaceuticals company Lundbeck found that one in six people in the country still drinks too much.

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