New World Wine – A threat for the wine nation France?

While wine production in France is mostly focusing on exports, the authors of the analysis strongly suggest France strengthen the domestic market, since the downturn in sales has to be dealt with first, but at the same time the country also needs to develop strategies for the future global market. The experts responsible for the report “Wine in the world – development 2050” mention a number of key areas, where the French wine economy needs, or rather is supposed to plan a strategy for demand, consumer trends, climate change and wine production in the next 40 years.

The analysis further concludes that “the consumers are basically not faithful”, which means that the century-old drinking habits of the modern wine consumer are starting to fall apart. This means that there will be a future advantage for wines from the “New World” - wine nations and a shift of demand to 3 main areas will happen: (1) China and India as well as South-East-Asia, (2) North and South America and (3) the Mediterranean area with North Europe and Russia.

In terms of production, the analysis comes up with three parts of the wine world: (1) Europe, (2) “New World” (North and South America, Australia and South Africa) and (3) “New New World” (Brazil, China, India, Africa, North and Eastern Europe). Experts fear that the latter producing countries will be the leading the global market in the future.

The analysis recommends a consolidation of the French wine industry similar to the beer and spirits industry's example. This could create a new generation of companies that produce wines according to the consumers market-conform wines – the production of bulk wines should be left for others. (aw.yoopress)