ITALY WORLD'S BIGGEST WINE PRODUCER

ITALY WORLD'S BIGGEST WINE PRODUCER

(ANSA) - Rome, June 13 - Italy last year overtook France to become the world's biggest wine producer and data for this year show a surge in Italian wine exports, the Coldiretti farmers' union reported.

Citing data from the European Union, Coldiretti said the last harvest produced 49.6 million hectolitres of wine in Italy compared to 46.2 million hectolitres in France.

EU wine production in 2010 totalled 157.2 billion hectolitres, down 3.7% from the previous year, Coldiretti added.

"It is with great pride that we can say we are the world's leading wine producer, having surpassed France not only in value but also in volume," Italian Agriculture Minister Saverio Romano said.

"This benchmark is also thanks to the excellent performance our wines are having abroad, with a 31% increase in exports to the United States in the first two months of 2011," he added.

"We are also first for quality, with over 60% of the wine we produce bottled with recognised denomination of origin labels. But we can even do better, we must do better," Romano said.

Italy had surpassed France in the past for bulk unbottled wine production, much of which was exported to France where it was used to blend more famous bottled wines like Beaujolais.

Italy overtook France also for the production of sparkling wines with 4.2 million hectolitres of prosecco and spumante bottled compared to four million hectolitres for French Champagne.

The first two months of 2011 also saw Italy boost exports to the EU by 6% while those towards China, while relatively low in volume, soared 146%.

The value of Italian wine exports in 2010 climbed to 3.93 billion euros with the export market overtaking the domestic one for the first time.