Prosecco Shortage? What Shortage?

Prosecco has been in the spotlight recently, with the apparent news of a global shortage. This we’re led to believe is to due to over demand and bad weather, but could it have been an elaborate marketing ploy?

2014 was a bad year for the Prosecco vineyards, grapes grown in the DOC flatlands of the Prosecco-producing region north of Venice were worst-hit by bad weather and heavy rainfall. Although the superior DOCG areas were less affected by last year’s rain soaked harvest.

Even though yields are 9% below expectation, the increase in grapes grown for Prosecco production in recent years more than outweighs this. The Prosecco DOC Consortium have now said, ‘there will not be a shortage’ of Prosecco this year.

The UK buys more Prosecco than anywhere else. In 2014 sales reached £181.8million, almost twice that of the previous year and compared to £141.3million on Champagne.

21 million litres of Prosecco were drunk, more than the combined total of Champagne at 6.5 million litres and Cava at 13 million litres.