Wine sector: Policy & Regulatory framework
*Monthly News*
Time Period: May 2019
This month, the main highlights for the wine sector at EU and global level range from further reflections and thoughts on copper use (in France mainly), new adopted rules (at EU level), which are aimed at simplifying and homogenizing wine making practices in the EU while increasing the consistency between EU oenological practices and international oenological codex of the OIV, and discussions on re-discovered (“modern”) winemaking techniques.
While, in terms of wine market dynamics, latest figures show that, globally speaking, (i) wine markets are becoming more heterogeneous, (ii) the Chinese slowdown in wine imports (- 5%) had quite an impact on main EU wine producers (Spain -40%, France -35% and Italy -19%). Whereas, on the U.S. side, in the first three months of 2019 imports decreased in value terms but increased in quantities (-3.4% and a slight growth in volume of +1.6%).
Finally, main trends in wine consumption that have been identified by IWSR are as follows: (1) the overall expected reduction in wine consumption (mainly among young people) with however an increased attention to the quality/price ratio, and (2) the “health consciousness” aspect among consumers.
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