German wines find favour

Germans spent more money on wine in 2008 than in the previous year, and also bought more German wines.

It appears that German wines are increasingly popular. As reported by the German Wine Institute (Deutschsn Weininstitut - DWI), practically every second bottle of wine purchased in Germany last year (49,4 per cent) contained German wine. The increase in volume sales of 4 per cent saw the German wines developing siginifcantly more positively than the total market, which showed a slight decrease of 1,3 per cent last year in volume terms.

In 2008, consumers spent more money on wine than they did in the previous year. Total value sales for wine in Germany increased by 2,2 per cent in 2008, while German wines showed a significantly better performance, with an increase of 7,4 per cent in value terms. Wines from France were in second place, they have a 13,6 per cent share of value sales, Italy has a share of 12,7 per cent, and Spain 5,9 per cent.

The average price for wines sold in supermarket chains (including discounters) increased by 11 Cents in 2008, compared to the previous year, to 2,49 € per litre. Consumers held their German wines in higher esteem, paying an average of 2,67 € per litre for these, on average 31 Cents more than for foreign wines. (WF/press release DWI)