While the announced decline in shipments of Cognac to China at the end of 2018 kept the suspense alive, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel de Cognac (BNIC) cleared up doubts : Charente eau-de-vie “confirms its development on its markets in 2018, with shipments on the rise”. Cognac sales are increasing sharply in the United States (+5% in volume), such that a target of 10,000 hectares more in three years has been set. A 5% growth in Charente production potential that worries the rest of the French vineyard. Indeed, Cognac is very dependent on the North American market (43% of volumes) but Donald Trump is scary by taking strong restrictions on imports.
The Chinese market was also frightening. With 24.2 million cognac’s bottles in 2018, it recorded a 5% drop in import volumes over the year. “Shipments to the Chinese market are delivering these good results, although there was a slight slowdown in the second half of the year,” notes the BNIC press release. We must not focus only on November and December, but on the whole period. Merchant Florent Morillon, head of Hennessy cognacs upstream, confirms “purchases have been anticipated for the Chinese New Year. With freight and customs clearance, there are peaks and overstocking. There have been very good sales in the previous months. »
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