Issued on:
Champagne sales are expected to mark a record year as shops and restaurants replenish stocks after months of virus-related restrictions and as retail demand surges, an industry body said Friday.
The outlook for the key Christmas and New Year festive season, however, is clouded by uncertainty over the recently detected Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Jean-Marie Barillere, co-president of the CIVC Champagne industry association and president of the Champagne brand group UMP, told AFP that the sector was headed for sales of 315 million bottles this year, representing turnover of 5.5 billion euros ($6.2 billion).
If confirmed, that would beat the current annual sales record of 5 billion euros, reached in 2019, before Covid struck.
The sales increase comes after severe spring frosts followed by summer rains wreaked havoc on French vineyards, some of which are forecast to report harvest losses of as much as a third for the year.
But Champagne must be aged more than a year and producers traditionally keep millions of bottles stored in their cellars to ensure steady supplies from one year to the next.
Strong exports, especially to English-speaking countries, were a big factor for the bumper year, Barillere said.
“The pandemic has created new consumer habits,” he said. “Everything related to entertaining at home is in high demand, including champagne.”
But the prospects for traditional events and restaurant dining over Christmas and New Year’s depends on Covid developments, and whether the Omicron strand prompts new travel restrictions, curfews or lockdowns.
“Two weeks ago I would have told you that the outlook for the festive season was excellent but the new variant has dampened our optimism,” he said.
There was now a danger of a “terrible halt” to plans for end-of-year festivities.
Dozens of countries have reported cases of the Omicron variant and the World Health Organization has said it could take weeks to determine how dangerous the variant really is. The EU health agency meanwhile has warned that the new strand could cause more than half of Europe’s Covid cases in the next few months.
(France 24 with AFP)
For all the latest Health News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
