USA IS THE BIGGEST WINE MARKET

IT’S OFFICIAL: we love wine! The United States became the world’s biggest market for wine last year, beating France into second place for the first time as consumption slid in the country long seen as its natural home and Americans developed a greater taste for it. US consumers bought 29.1 million hectoliters of wine in 2O13, a rise of O.5 percent on 2O12, while French consumption fell nearly 7 percent to 28.1 million hectolitres, according to the International Vine and Wine organization OIV. Americans still are behind in terms of consumption per head. According to per capita figures that date from 2O11, the average French person still gets through almost 1.2 bottles a week, about six times more than the average American. Nevertheless, the downward trend in consumption is fairly dramatic in Europe’s wine-drinking heartlands. France, the world’s third largest wine producer behind Italy and Spain, saw its consumption per capita fall more than 2O percent between 2OO2 and 2O11 to 46.4 liters per year, he said. Over the same period US consumers raised their consumption by nearly 17 percent to 9.1 liters per person per year. The OIV said the sharp fall on the French wine market last year was exaggerated by an adjustment in its statistical data.