Champagne sales continue to decline

A detailed analysis of the 2024 champagne market

After a complicated 2024, where sales figures sank to under the levels of 2002, hopes of a quick rebound in 2025 are beginning to shatter. Sales had picked up slightly in March and April, with the first quarter posting a 0.3% sales year on year (YoY)increase. The boost had been driven by exports, potentially stimulated by the Trump administration tariff threats and pauses. Nevertheless, the May figures show further declines, pushing the moving annual target (MAT) of 270.9 million bottles once again below the 2025 sales figure (271.7 million bottles). It is no secret that Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs are not helping the plight of the Champenois, but there is no denying that the regions problems stretch well beyond the uncertainties in the American market.

Source and copyright CIVC 2024 expedition report

Some answers for today’s crisis can be found in the Comité Champagne (CIVC)’s detailed 2025 sales analysis report, which was released at the end of May. In his foreword to the data analysis, Charles Goemaere, the CIVC’s General Director, explains the dire sales figures by an inflationary economic climate in France and an overstocking of the export markets, before inciting producers to prepare the future. He believes the solution to jumpstart the sales again lies in the “conquering of new markets, seducing new consumers, maintaining ambitious environmental goals and perpetuating a sustainable and solid organization model.” Goemaere concludes that “luckily, Champagne can count on the strength of its decades-old fundamental principles: resilience, openness toward the world, a strategy of growth through value, and of course the renown and the desirability of the Champagne appellation.”

Source and Copyright CIVC - 2024 expedition report

France

This hopeful conclusion in a difficult time only tells part of the story. For instance, the French economy has indeed been stagnating since the country came out of the Covid-19 crisis, however, according to the official government figures, 2024 saw less inflation and more consumer spending than in 2023. An INSEE (the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) report sets the 2024 inflation rate at 2% compared to 4.9% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2022, while it points out that consumer spending increased from 0.6% YoY to 1.1% YoY between 2023 and 2024. Goemaere further justifies the waning sales on the morose geo-political climate, that has dampened people’s desire to celebrate, but this fails to acknowledge that France hosted the Olympics, an event that should have had champagne corks fly all through the summer. Yet this was not reflected in the French champagne sales, which fell from 127.3 million bottles in 2023 to 118.3 million bottles in 2024, amounting to a 7.1% YoY decrease. The French market remains Champagne’s largest, accounting for 45.5 percent of all sales amounting to 36% of the turnover.

A more comprehensive analysis clearly shows that the French market has declined by more than one third since 2010, when 185.1 million bottles were sold, and the 2025 figures show this trend is not about to be reversed. Sales figures from January to May show a further YoY decline of 6.5% (equaling a loss of 2.1 million bottles over the five-month period). A big reason for the French market’s downward spiral can be found in the collapse of champagne supermarket sales, where so-called entry-level cuvees have lost out big to other sparling wines. Champagne supermarket sales nosedived to a mere 26.6 million bottles (down by 10 percent compared to 2023). In the same period Prosecco supermarket sales increased by 9 percent to over 21 million bottles and crémant sales ended the year at 47 million bottles, up 1% compared to 2023 according to Agrimer data. Even the CIVC report admits that it is unlikely French champagne sales will rebound to the 2010 levels. This year they decided to blame the French more restraint alcohol consumption habits, but last year’s report admitted that a wider choice of sparkling wines competing with entry-level champagnes had lured away some regular champagne drinkers as well.