Source: https://www.vitisphere.com/
For the first time in several years, sales of Burgundy wines have fallen in some markets. In supermarkets, “sales fell by 25.2% by volume and 16.7% in revenue over the first eight months of 2021/2022”, said Laurent Delaunay, vice-president of the Burgundy wine bureau BIVB, at a press conference on 21 September. This is a very noticeable trend for a wine region which, until now, “bucked the national trend of declining consumption. We were the region that sold both the most wine and the most expensive”. It’s a similar story in export markets which posted a decline “of 10.6% by volume, but an increase of 12.6% by value”, after “three absolute record years”. A notable exception is the hospitality industry, “where our wines are doing extremely well”. Trade figures reveal “a 53% increase by volume over the first 8 months of 2022” compared to the previous years’ average.
The trend reversal was fairly predictable, for several reasons, the most important of which is availabilities. “Inventories at wineries are at rock bottom, accounting for around 14 months of sales”, said a concerned Delaunay who heads up shipping company Édouard Delaunay. The small 2021 vintage has a lot to do with this, with production now estimated at 997,000 hectolitres, 30% lower than the average over the last 5 marketing campaigns. Concurrently with this, demand has skyrocketed, and “firms removed as many pre-2021 vintages as possible from their inventories to avoid disappointing customers as much as they could”. In practical terms, “2021-2022 bottle loadings increased by 10% compared to the five-year average”.