UK leading market for Bordeaux blanc

The UK became the leading European export market and second largest global export market for white Bordeaux last year, importing over 3 million bottles.

According to figures from the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), last year the UK imported 3.7m bottles of white Bordeaux, making it the biggest market in Europe for the region’s whites and only just behind the biggest market in the world, the US, which imported 4m bottles in 2016.

All Bordeaux imports to the UK dropped 10% last year, with reds seeing an 11% dip and whites a 6% decline.

Reds still far outweigh white imports in the UK, 137,000 hectolitres of the former compared with 28,000 hectolitres of the latter.

Nonetheless, after ’Bordeaux Rouge’, which makes up 41% of imports to the UK, Bordeaux Blanc is the next biggest category, making up 14% of imports.

On the other hand, the only white appellations after that of any note, Graves & Pessac-Léognan and Sauternes, make up a mere 2% of further Bordeaux imports to the UK combined, a fifth of Bordeaux Supérieur imports or a third of imports from the Médoc, St Emilion or Pomerol and their satellites.

The CIVB has earmarked its white wines – as well as rosés and crémant – as “important areas of discovery” to interest and engage drinkers and show off the “diversity” of Bordeaux.

The CIVB’s UK market consultant, Fiona Juby, told the drinks business that interest in the region’s white wines was increasing in the UK.

Last year the CIVB took a pavilion at ‘The Big Feastival’ (a consumer food and drink festival held in Oxfordshire) where it only presented white wines.

READ MORE: BORDEAUX IS NOT ‘OLD FASHIONED’