After a slump in 2020, export sales of French wine and spirits soared to €15.5 billion last year – a historical level.

French wine and spirits are breaking all records for exports. After the huge drop experienced in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions, France’s exports bounced back last year, increasing by 28.3%. Even more remarkably, according to figures published by the French Federation of Wine and Spirit Exporters (FEVS), sales, which reached €15.5 billion, were up by 10.5% compared to the previous record, which had been set in 2019.

Exports also increased by volume (+11% compared to 2020 and +4% over 2019), reaching 203 million 12-bottle cases.

“Growth by value is almost three times greater than growth rate by volume, which shows the increasing added value of wine and spirits exports,” César Giron, president of FEVS, declared.

Thanks to these impressive figures, wine and spirits represent France’s second-largest sector in trade surplus terms (€14.2 billion), behind the aeronautics industry (€19.7 billion) but ahead of perfume and cosmetics (€13 billion).

• China and the USA Drive Growth

Parsing the numbers more closely, growth in wine exports (€10.5 billion) were driven by champagne (33% by value), ahead of Bordeaux (22%) and Burgundy (12%) wines. As for spirits, exports rose to €4.9 billion, with cognac still far in the lead, with €3.6 billion in sales (74% of spirits exports by value and 34% by volume).

“Despite evolutions in the global health crisis and the recurrent logistical issues all year long, the global economic recovery was also supported by the suspension of American taxes on still wines and the resumption of exports to the China/Hong Kong/Singapore zone,” an FEVS member points out in a press release. Those two regions combined account for over 50% of the increase registered in 2021, and the United States continues to be far and away France’s largest export market by value.

More information about Wine & Spirits sectors in France: wine and spirits.