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According to Vinexpo, the international wine fair held every two years in Bordeaux and Hong Kong, Germany will surpass Italy as the world’s third largest wine consuming nation.
(by the Decanter)
In the next four years, the Teutons will overtake the Romans on the podium, according to the report, while the US will easily keep their position as the world’s largest wine market.
Germans may be better known for their beers than for sipping fine wine, but the country that gifted the world with the Oktoberfest will consume the equivalent of 3.3bn bottles of wine in 2018.
That will overtake Italy, which is only set to uncork 3.28bn bottles, according to the market research group The IWSR.
Italy’s wine consumption will sink by 5% over the next four years, while Germany’s will increase by 1%, driven by the sparkling wines.
Italy and France are set to remain neck-and-neck as the world’s biggest wine consuming nations per head, on around 45 litres per person annually – not considering the small but overindulgent Vatican City. On a per head basis, Germany is back on around 36 litres.
The Vinexpo report also predicted that the USA would strengthen its lead over France as the biggest wine consuming nation. US consumption is set to rise by 11% up to the end of 2018, to 4.5bn bottles.
In the UK, wine consumption is set to increase by 5.5% in the next four years, after being in decline since 2009, according to The IWSR and Vinexpo.
This forecast is partly based on the assumption that duty tax will not rise so steeply in the next few years, following the government’s decision to scrap automatic increases in its annual Budget.
If the forecast proves correct, the UK would consume around 1.7bn bottles in 2018, versus 1.6bn last year. Sparkling and rose wines will drive this growth, and white wines are set to become more popular than red over the same time period.
The pick-up in sales should begin this year. ‘We can say confidently that 2015 will show that the UK wine recession is over,’ said Guillaume Deglise, chief executive of Vinexpo, the wine trade fair that will take place in Bordeaux in June.
Check out the German wines in our selection: Gewürztraminer 2013, Valckenberg and Riesling Tradition 2013, Robert Weil
