Wine's slow, steady sparkle

By: Chris Brook-Carter - 21 October 2011 13:25

I am just putting together the final touches to my presentation on non-Champagne sparkling wine for the International Sparkling Wine Symposium in 10 days time.

Our friends at The IWSR have just sent through their latest forecasts for the sector and, once again, sparkling wine is proving one of the quiet successes of the drinks industry.

Despite the recession and continued economic difficulties, the market is forecast to reach 200m nine-litre case by 2016, up from 150m in 2005 and the current 176m. Sparkling wine has been growing worldwide at a CAGR of 2.9%. While that's due to flatten out a little to 2.3% from now until 2016, there are still many regions where that worldwide number will be easily beaten.

Of course, if you want to hear why and where it is being successful, you'll need to be at the event in two weeks, or at least monitor these pages from Tuesday onwards.

But the breadth of markets, where it's seeing growth and the large number of positive trends driving success (allied to the lack of serious marketing muscle) makes it one of the more colourful drinks categories.