ITALY TO SURPASS FRANCE IN WINE CONSUMPTION BY THE END OF THE YEAR. CIA (ITALIAN AGRICULTURAL CONFEDERATION) SITES STUDY BY BRITISH GROUP ISWR/DGR (COMMISIONED BY "VINEXPO" OF BORDEAUX)

After the recent exploits registered for the Unites States, Italian wine is now set to reach another import landmark: Italy will soon surpass France, which is today's world wine leader, to take the world record in consumption. This new endeavor was recently noted by CIA (Confederation of Italian Farmers), based on the results of a study commissioned by "Vinexpo" of Bordeaux, one of the biggest wine fairs in the world (next one, 17-22 June), which had commissioned the British research company ISWR/DGR to make an estimate on the progress of the sector for the next few years.

The confederation emphasized that the results of the study predict a global growth in consumption of over 10% by 2010, reaching a total value of 90 billion euros. This is equal to that of the cosmetics industry, and to the sum of earnings of the four major IT enterprises (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and EBay). In quantity, global wine consumption should reach over 30 billion bottles, with a complete changeover from the past and the current world scene.

The English institute predicts France will lose its role as leading world wine consumer because its per capita consumption continues to fall, just as in Spain, while it remains stable in Italy (thus it will probably conquer first place already by the end of this year), and is on the rise in the United States, Germany, Britain, and, above all, there is vertiginous growth in new consumer countries like China, Russia and India.

In 2010, according to ISWR/DGR, the world's top consumer country will probably be China, which is today in 10th place. With this perspective, noted CIA, the communication of the European Commission for OCM wine reforms, "must probably be reviewed, above all, the part that foresees the extirpation of 400,000 hectares of vineyards within the European Union, and the prolonging of the ban on new vineyards, and set resources, instead, towards competitivity of our products and, above all, for their promotion, nationally and on international markets".