Dec. 8 - This Christmas and New Year, Italy will toast to the export record of its sparkling wine. According to an analysis published by Coldiretti, based on Istat data on foreign trade in the first eight months of 2014, the bottles of Italian sparkling wines shipped abroad increased by 22%. If in Italy, Italians have always preferred homegrown bubbles - underlines Coldiretti - abroad, there have never been so many requests like this year. In sharp contrast to the difficulties of the national economy, 2014 will close with shipment abroad of 300 million bottles of sparkling wine, an all-time record. Italian sparkling wine thus overcomes French champagne, which recorded a 6% increase in exports over the same period.

ITALIAN SPUMANTE ON TOP
Since the beginning of 2007, Italian spumante bottles exported abroad doubled, conquering new markets, such as Russia and China. In the land of the dragon, Italian sparkling wine consumption tripled (+195 per cent) compared to last year. A real boom in sales in the same period was recorded in the UK (+ 50% in quantity), which bypasses the United States (+ 21%) and becomes the first market for Italian bubbles, while Germany drops to third place with stable imports.