Italy Is The Biggest Wine Producer

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 10th 2008 at 7:00PM

Italy is once again the world's largest wine producer, an honor it hasn't had since back in 1998. This year's big harvest is expected to give Italy the edge over France. The Coldiretti farmers lobby estimates the production of Italian wine is up eight percent over 2007 to 4.7 billion liters, compared with 4.44 billion liters in neighboring France, where production fell five percent. The bumper crop of grapes is attributed to good weather, especially in Sicily which battled a deadly fungus last year. Production estimates by Assoenologi, an association of Italian wine producers, are slightly lower at 4.45 billion liters, or an increase of five percent which would still give Italy a squeaker of a win.

Bloomberg reports that more Italian consumers are taking another look at prosecco, the Italian sparkling wine, this season for their celebrations. For the most part prosecco is cheaper than its popular French rival, champagne.

Tags: france, italy, prosecco, vineyards, wine