Sales of Rhône Valley wines in the United States and China fell sharply at the start of the year, by up to 45%, due to the American taxation of French wines and the health crisis, announced on Friday the inter-profession.
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"
The real fall is in the United States, with a drop of 20% in recent months and 40 to 45% between January and August
", explained Friday the new president of the interprofession Philippe Pellaton during a videoconference.
A decrease which is explained by the cumulative effects of the taxes decided by the administration of President Donald Trump and of "
the decrease in the flow of goods
", linked to the health crisis, according to Philippe Pellaton, elected Thursday at the head of this organization promotion of Rhône Valley wines, a protected designation of origin.
25% customs duty
In mid-October 2019, Donald Trump applied a 25% customs duty on bottled, non-sparkling French wines of less than 14 degrees.
Some 150,000 hectoliters of wines from the Rhône Valley, which includes Côtes-du-Rhône, are exported each year to the United States which, with 17% of exports, is the leading country for foreign sales of the protected designation of origin.
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In China, where the global Covid-19 crisis started, the fall in exports also reached "
40 to 45% over the first six months of 2020, but the volumes exported, of the order of 40,000 to 50,000 hectoliters being less , according to Mr. Pellaton, the consequences were "less important",
he underlined.
China represents 8% of Rhône Valley wine exports.
"This is particularly worrying because these two countries had been targeted for years as sources of growth in volume,"
lamented Mr. Pellaton.
At the national level, during the two months of the first confinement, sales had fallen respectively "
by -30% and -20%
"
:
"
a relatively short period
"
,
welcomed Philippe Pellaton
,
indicating however, without predicting consequences of the new confinement, that the market has not "
quite found the level of marketing
" before the health crisis.