Hungarian champagne crowns the end-of-year holidays!

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Hungarian consumers no longer only open champagne on New Year’s Eve. According to the overview prepared by the National Chamber of Agriculture and the National Council of Mountain Communities, habits have changed significantly in recent years, thanks to the promotional activities of recent years, people no longer drink champagne only on holidays, and demand is more spread out on an annual basis than in the past. It can be observed as a general trend, both in Hungary and on the international market, that the demand for sparkling wines has been growing continuously for two decades now (during this time, the world’s sparkling wine production has more than doubled). Summer is much stronger, but the holidays no longer represent such a peak. Despite this, the end-of-year holidays and Easter still represent the peak in consumption. However, domestic producers expect weaker demand at the end of this year than last year. The reason for this is that sales have become more difficult compared to previous years, and they have to fight for every bottle. The majority of sparkling wines are released at the end of the year, but the extent to which they are sold out varies, which also determines the purchases of department store chains in the following months.

At the same time, Hungary has a tradition not only of consuming sparkling wine, but also of making sparkling wine

The first domestic sparkling wine factory opened in Bratislava, in what is now Slovakia. In Pest, sparkling wine production began in 1852 in the factory of Márton Hölle in Józsefváros, and then, with the founding of a factory by József Törley in 1882, the sparkling wine production center was moved to Budafok, which currently accounts for the majority of domestic sparkling wine production. At the same time, more and more wineries are now appearing on the market with their own sparkling wine, and sparkling wines with a domestic designation of origin are also appearing on the market, as the Etyek sparkling wine received European Union protection in November this year. Approximately 200 thousand hectoliters of sparkling wine are produced in our country annually, a significant part of which is sold on the Hungarian market, and about a quarter goes to export markets, primarily to Estonia, Canada, Romania and Sweden. Today, even those who would not otherwise drink alcohol can safely toast with sparkling wine, as more and more manufacturers offer non-alcoholic wine-based sparkling products on store shelves.

NAK