Champagne shipments to the Gulf slow but still flowing

Yuri Arcurs/Alamy via Reuters Connect

• 3.5m bottles shipped to Gulf in 2023
• Comité Champagne sees 40% growth
• Gulf bucks the downward global trend

The growth in champagne shipments to the Gulf has slowed in recent years but the market is still one of the strongest in the world, bucking a global trend for declining sales.

Around 3.5 million bottles of champagne were shipped to the Gulf states in 2023, an increase of about 40 percent, according to data from Comité Champagne, the industry body representing French producers.

This is less than half the growth seen between 2022 and 2023, when the World Cup in Qatar spurred a 91 percent increase.

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Growth this year is expected to slow again to around 20 percent, industry experts told AGBI – but the increase is in sharp contrast to the rest of the world, where consumption has declined.

Even in its home market of France, champagne sales were down 8 percent in 2023. Total exports were down just over 8 percent, with the biggest market, the US, down 20 percent and the UK down more than 7 percent.

A breakdown of shipment figures per country for 2024 will not be published until March 2025, but Comité Champagne said global exports for the first seven months of this year were down around 10 percent.

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Tony Dodds, general manager for champagne at Maritime and Mercantile International (MMI), one of the main alcohol distributors in Dubai, says sales in 2023 grew by around 40 percent.

He says this was partly down to the government’s decision to cut the 30 percent tax on alcohol in January 2023.

Dodds says the company continues to see strong growth of nearly 20 percent, despite the usual summer slowdown.

“Beach clubs and independent restaurants are driving this growth, and we expect it to continue as new openings – particularly in Dubai – offer more excellent venues with a wider selection,” he says.

Erika Doyle, founder of Dubai-based Drink Dry, says sparkling wines were also a “significant player” in the non-alcoholic sector.

She says sparkling wine accounts for 15.5 percent of the total value of sales across all Drink Dry's channels. "The category overall has experienced a remarkable 78 percent growth, underscoring a robust consumer interest in sophisticated non-alcoholic options.”

MMI’s Dodds believes sales will remain strong for the remainder of the year and into 2025, as the Gulf’s restaurant sector continues to grow. 

Naim Maadad, founder and CEO of Gates Hospitality in the UAE, said champagne consumption at his luxury restaurants was flat compared to last year and he believed "the airline procurement volume must also be kept in mind as they do represent a large percentage of the numbers reported".

Emirates – the largest airline in the region – has had a longstanding partnership of 32 years with France's LVMH - Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

The Dubai flag carrier claimed it purchases more champagne than any other airline in the world and that it has spent around $1 billion on wine over the past 16 years.

An Emirates spokesperson told AGBI: "Consumption of champagne onboard Emirates has risen in 2024, in line with increased travel demand and ticket sales."

In an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of champagne and demand for less mainstream varieties, Le Clos, a division of MMI, will be hosting the Gulf’s largest champagne festival in Dubai this November.

The event will include many popular brands from France hoping to offload excess bottles due to falling sales in Europe.

“We’re noticing more requests for small-grower champagnes, a wider range of vintages, and large formats – not just for celebrations, but also to complement fine dining,” Dodds says.