It has been announced that Italy has for the first time, taken over France as the largest wine producer in the world.

According to the European Commission, last year saw Italy produce 4.96 billion litres of wine. This just overtakes France, who produced 4.62 billion litres. Whilst this is an astonishing amount, it is a drop of around 1% compared with what France produced back in 2009.

“The increase in Italian production must also be compared to the fact that the territorial size of the French vineyards is far larger than our ones. Exports are also on the increase – up 15 per cent compared to last year, which is a very good sign.” Says Domenico Bosco, from the Italian Agricultural Workers Union.

Mr. Bosco also said that France would be embarrassed that Italy’s ‘Prosecco’, their own version of champagne, sold 420 million litres compared to France’s 400 million.

Britain is the third largest importer of Italian wine, buying around 12% of the total produced. Britain is only third to Germany and the United States.

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