VERZENAY \u2014 Champagne producers in northeastern France need to find new markets after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened 30 per cent tariffs on EU exports, the chairman of a French industry group said, suggesting Brazil, Southeast Asia and South Africa as options.<\/p>\n
The U.S. is the biggest market for champagne with 10 per cent of champagne exports by volume and 15 per cent by value and producers say the tariffs will push up prices for consumers and threaten jobs all along the supply chain, including in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe repercussions for all family champagne exports will be severe because it will mean lost income from bottle sales, which will also affect the grape harvest quotas we will be allowed to collect,\u201d said Stephane Vignon, whose family has been producing Champagne in Verzenay since 1946.<\/p>\n
With 70 per cent of champagne sales currently concentrated in just five countries, tariffs should push producers to seek new markets, said Maxime Toubart, chairman of industry group Comite Champagne (Champagne Committee).<\/p>\n
He said France\u2019s cognac industry, which is mainly reliant on exports to China and the U.S. where it could also face duties, provides a cautionary tale for champagne producers on the need to diversify. But replacing U.S. sales is not easy, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t just say we\u2019ll sell three million fewer bottles in the U.S. and put them in Japan instead. So actually, there is no alternative today to this fall in volume,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Total champagne exports fell more than 10 per cent last year but rose slightly in the first four months of 2025 ahead of a 10% tariff in April, farm office France Agri Mer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf tomorrow the 30% tariff is implemented, I think it will definitely impact the relationship,\u201d said Hugo Drappier of the Drappier Champagne house. \u201cWe\u2019ve always managed to build a relationship of trust with our clients through the quality of our wines … Let\u2019s hope that relationship isn\u2019t broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Writing and additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Michaela Cabrera. Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Sharon Singleton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VERZENAY \u2014 Champagne producers in northeastern France need to find new markets after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[712,45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-6143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-apple-news","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}