Prosecco ‘takes over from discounted Champagne’

2nd March, 2017 by Patrick Schmitt

Sales of Prosecco will surpass 412 million bottles by 2020, as the Italian sparkling “takes over from discounted Champagne”, according to Vinexpo CEO, Guillaume Deglise.

During a presentation in London yesterday, Deglise released findings from a biennial study by Vinexpo and the IWSR into global wine and spirits trends, which showed, in particular, the expansion of the sparkling wine market worldwide.

Revealing IWSR forecasts that sales of sparkling wines (including Champagne) will grow by 8.6% to total 240.4m 9l cases by 2020, up from 221.3m in 2016, he said that “the big trend is Prosecco, which will definitely drive sparkling wine growth for the future”.

Continuing, he said that Prosecco sales would outgrow all other types of sparkling wine, increasing by over 36% over the next five years from 25.2m cases….

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3 Responses to “Prosecco ‘takes over from discounted Champagne’”

Tom Stevenson says:

March 2, 2017 at 1:55 pm

“Prosecco is taking over from discounted Champagne” is absolutely not a problem for Champagne.

Reply
- Andrea D'Ercole says:
  
  March 2, 2017 at 3:55 pm
  
  it could be if all champagne sold in UK is “discounted” because champagne houses instead of advertising their differences with the prosecco are trying to compete with it on price…
  
  Reply
Tom Stevenson says:

March 3, 2017 at 3:14 pm

You need to consider more longterm Andrea. Ultimately Champagne is limited by its size. When all possible consolidation (a term I prefer to “expansion”, which is not only inaccurate but gives the opposite impression) has been completed now and in the future, and Champagne is fully planted and in full production, there will inevitably come a time when demand will exceed supply because no matter how much other sparkling wines excel, there will always be a bleed-off of consumers to Champagne. The bleed-off from Prosecco is tiny because most Prosecco drinkers do not even like yeast-aged characteristics, whether in Champagne, Franciacorta or sparkling Australian, but it exists nonetheless. So ultimately Champagne has to concentrate on achieving the very best, most widespread high quality and consistency, and work out how to achieve that when the climate is constantly moving the goalposts. In this context (which I appreciate might not be the same context as your response), discounting Champagne is of no consequence whatsoever, even if some houses, cooperatives and speculative growers (i.e., not the serious quality growers) do crazy things with prices in the interim.

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