France reports sharp drop in wine, champagne sales

As wallets grew thinner around the world, fans of Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne cut back heavily on their purchases of French wine in 2008, according to French government statistics released Tuesday.

French households drank almost 10 percent less wine last year than in 2007, and exports by French vintners sank 15 percent by volume and almost 30 percent by value in the first quarter of 2009, the agriculture ministry reported.

"It's a phenomenon of the current economic situation, so we need to be prudent and not sound the alarm," said Xavier de Volontat, who heads an association of French vintners. "We'll have to be prudent vis-a-vis our members in the months to come. It's true that they're being patient, but they have to be able to get by economically."

France's chateaux and vineyards have voiced concerns for their future after seeing orders plunge since the end of 2008.

But Arnaud Crete, of Chateau Listran in Bordeaux, said he has been pessimistic about the prospects for French wine for some time, as new, low-cost vintages from across the globe gain ground in the international market.

"I always take the example of tomatoes," he said. "They're inedible, the tomatoes you find in supermarkets. But people buy them just the same."

Though France remains a nation of wine-lovers - 86 percent of French households bought at least one bottle last year, and the country retains its distinction as the world's top producer - the French are drinking less and less: the average household bought just 43 liters in 2008, down from 47 in 2007.

Many experts and vintners have linked the drop in consumption to the global financial downturn. But another set of government numbers released this week show French households have bumped up their purchasing in recent months, and some view the falloff in wine consumption as an emblem of a larger, ongoing cultural shift.

"In the old days, it's true that we drank 10 times more alcohol," said Jacques Delpiroux, who runs a Paris brasserie with his wife and has worked in cafes since 1968. "The bars used to be full morning to night."

In 1960, the average French adult drank almost 175 liters of wine per year - more than four times as much as the average for an entire household in 2008. And wine has been harder hit in recent years than beer or spirits - the French drink only half as much total alcohol today as 50 years ago.

Gone are the wine-drenched lunches of yore, the early-evening bottles of Bordeaux, traditions now relegated to the realm of cultural lore, said Delpiroux. A few years ago he kept his brasserie open for the after-work crowd, but he now shuts the door at 4:30 p.m.

"It wasn't profitable," he said. "It didn't even pay for the lights."