Nigeria Emerges Fastest Growing Champagne Consuming Country - Food

Nigeria Emerges Fastest Growing Champagne Consuming Country - Food - Nairaland

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Nigeria Emerges Fastest Growing Champagne Consuming Country by Sanchez01(op): 9:56am On Jun 13, 2015

Obviously the World’s biggest wine fair in the world, the Vinexpo Wine and Spirits Fair opens in Bordeaux, France Wine capital, this weekend, with wine merchants eyeing new tipplers in Africa as global consumption rises in and Asia other continents.

The United States of America and China are believed to be the world’s top wine lovers while Africa is considered the industry’s next “future destination”, according to the Vinexpo Wine and Spirits Fair, in a market expecting 3.5% growth over the next three years.

In Bordeaux, 45,000 buyers from 120 countries will hop from luxury chateaux to prestige vineyards partying and guzzling as France, the world’s leading wine producer, lays out its best bottles for a five-day get-together starting on Sunday. The Fair is expected to come to an end on Thursday next week.

President of France, Francois Hollande, will be the first head of state to open the Fair as Wine is seen as the country’s second biggest export after aeronautics.

Vinexpo Fair CEO, Guillaume Deglise has raised concerns over the “changing picture” and the “several uncertainties” facing the consumption of wine and spirits despite enjoying and buoyant momentum at the present.

“We’re at a moment of transition with well-developed markets on the wane, such as France, because of changes in consumption patterns and differences between generations,” Deglise stated.

“It’s important to identify markets that will drive our exports outside of China and the US,” he said.

Coming as the least expected, data surprisingly puts Nigeria, where over half of the people are Muslims, as the fastest growing country for Champagne consumption, with the ‘sparkling wine’ well known and accepted among the country’s middle class, hip-hop artistes and movie stars.

Despite the slow sales of cognac and other spirits in Asia, Nigerians spent $700 million (621 million euros) on spirits in 2012 and are expected to double that to $1.5 billion by 2017.

The Vinexpo fair will bring 2,350 exhibitors together from 42 countries, two-third of them from France, which last year produced 523 million 12-bottle crates.

Big Wine producing countries such as Italy and Spain will be duly represented alongside Portugal, Chile, the United States, Britain, Germany, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

In France, some of the talk is likely to focus on a controversial vote by French MPs last week to loosen the country’s tough 25-year-old laws on alcohol advertising.

The 1991 legislation, aimed at fighting youth drinking, banned TV advertising of drinks with alcohol content of more than 1.2% and showing brands in stadium hoardings.

The Vinexpo was created in 1981, the Vinexpo exhibition has established itself over the years as the key event for major international operators in the wine and spirits sector.