21 August, 2015 – In 2014, sales of Italian sparkling wine abroad registered a historical record with a 20% increase in the number of bottles shipped. This emerges from a Coldiretti analysis presented at Expo, which also shows that the favored products are Prosecco, Asti and Franciacorta, while the main customers are the United States (with a 49% increase) and the UK (with a 55% increase): 320 million bottles were uncorked last year outside Italian borders, more than the numbers registered by French champagne – whose exports stopped at 307 million bottles. The results obtained by Italian sparkling wine supports the entire wine sector, while the earliest harvest in over a decade has just begun, with production expected to increase by at least 5% compared to last year, for an expected total of about 44 million hectoliters, with excellent quality, according to Coldiretti’s initial estimates. The climatic conditions and great heat accelerated processes and anticipated the harvest, which is the second earliest since World War II, second only to that of 2003, the year of the historic drought that began on August 2. (Red)
