The language of wine that cheers

We learn from Vinexpo (the Bordeaux wine exhibition) of the league table for wine consumption. This is by country and is the country's total consumption of so called 'light wine' - that means fortified wines and sparkling wines are excluded. The UK comes in half way down the top ten at number five. First is the USA, but with five times the UK population that is not a great surprise, more so is that China, with four times the population of the US comes in only at number six. Europe takes the other three top places with Italy at number two, France number three and Germany at number four, whilst Spain (with admittedly only about half the population of Germany) is beaten into eighth place by its Spanish speaking ex with about the same population, Argentina. Russia, with a population about half the size of the US comes in at number nine, while plucky Romania with a population about a third of the size of the UK comes in at number 10. Fascinating that the UK is the highest placed of the 'non-wine-producing' countries. Looked at another way, the biggest markets by language are English speaking...

Fun and Games

The Olympic games take place between 27th July and 12 August and the Paralympics between 29th August and 9th September and - forewarned is forearmed - it seems that disruption to delivery services is likely if the delivery address is near a venue where competitions will take place. We imagine that most affected customers will be well aware of this but those of you sending presents and bearing gifts should be conscious that that difficulties may be significant on or around these dates in both London and Weymouth. London details are sketched out on the transport for London website at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/london2012/21677.aspx

Two Cheers from France

The French wine trade has particularly high hopes of their newly elected President, François Hollande, because he actually drinks - whereas his illustrious predecessor was famously teetotal. They hope he revisits the Loi Evin (France's alcohol advertising law) and will be more supportive of wine exports. At WineDrop towers we fear he may be too locked in to negotiations with Angela "Europe can only be built together" Merkel to notice...