“Loyal” champagne drinkers maintain sales

The champagne shipments results released last week were in line with expectation and a cause for satisfaction, Comité Champagne told DI at the Annual Champagne tasting yesterday.

“If you look at the 2014 figures the first 14 markets are up. People are still loyal to champagne and when they can afford champagne they will return.

“The only market that was negative was France due to taxation. They won’t increase taxation any more [and] it is hoped it will bring back confidence and consumption,” Bruno Paillard, Comité Champagne president said.

Vincent Perrin, Comité Champagne managing director added: “Loyalty is a strong message we got out of the figures.

“Champagne has been moving and changing. It is clear that we need to grow towards the public. That is why we are launching new ways of communicating with the consumer.”

One of these ways is the Comité Champagne ‘Terre de Champagne’ web TV series and E-learning ‘Champagne Campus’ tool.

“We cannot rely only on the history of champagne,” the managing director said.

“In the UK there is a strong appetitive for more information on Champagne. We want to reach more and more people, it is not a big change but we need several years and we try to think a few steps ahead.

“In the coming years there will be new consumers coming to champagne. We don’t want to miss them because there is no reason why we should. We should be able to reach this new generation.”

The online tools aim to provide more information on the history of Champagne, the production methods and its global markets.