Champagne sales get their fizz back

Champagne sales made a bit of a come back in the last 2 months of 2009 helped by a strong performance in the French domestic markets and sales growth in the UK. According to ACNielsen, sales in France were up 8.6% in volume and 6.3% in value and in the UK take home trade sales were up 3% in both volume and value. But overall shipments for the year were 10% down on 2008 so whether the short-term recovery, helped by Christmas discounting, will last into 2010 still remains to be seen.