Champagne loses fizz in Europe after tough year
PARIS (AP) ? Europeans are finding fewer reasons to pop open a bottle of Champagne as another year of economic troubles and high unemployment saps the region's appetite for the finer things. But while the latest industry figures show that sales might be on the wane in Europe, other markets, particularly Japan and the United States, are developing a taste for a glass of bubbly.
In what is certain to be bad news for the vineyards, France ? Champagne's largest market ? is drinking fewer bottles. Sales of Champagne for the country were down 4.9 percent, and 5 percent elsewhere in the 27-country European Union, in the first nine months of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011, according to CIVC, the national association of growers and producers of the wine.
Nineteen months of rising unemployment and growing fears that the worst is yet to come have taken their toll on France ? nearly seven in 10 French are worried about their country's future, according to a recent poll.
"The French are pessimist by nature," said Antoine Chiquet, whose family has been producing Champagne for three generations and wine for eight. "We had a difficult election, we're in an economy where Europe's foundations are being questioned."
Nonetheless, the country managed to drink 175.7 million bottles of Champagne from Nov. 1 2011 to Oct. 31 2012, according to CIVC ? enough for nearly 3 bottles a year for every man, woman and child but about 10 million bottles fewer than the previous year. In contrast, the U.S. consumed enough sparkling wine for about 1.5 bottles per person in 2010, the latest figures available from the California-based Wine Institute.
But while the news out of France and Europe is bad, CIVC figures show export sales were up 3 percent in the first three quarters of the year. Top markets included the U.S., Japan and, to a lesser extent, China. A total of 19.4 million bottles of Champagne went to the United States and 7.9 million went to Japan ? the only two countries outside Europe in the top seven export markets.
Takayasu Ogata, a Tokyo-based sommelier, said Champagne and sparkling wine consumption is climbing in Japan at a time when overall wine demand peaked about 2000. According to the French figures, Champagne consumption alone was up nearly 7 percent over a year there.
"Both individuals and restaurants are taking to Champagnes with personality, including those that are from small makers but taste good," he said.
Lower price is another reason. Gone are the days when a bottle of Moet & Chandon went for 5,000 yen ($60) or more in Japan. These days, you can get real Champagne for as little as 2,000 yen ($25).
Of course, for those with rich tastes and a budget to match there are still lots of expensive Champagnes, selling for 10 times that, according to Ogata, who works at Venture Republic, an Internet retailer, and is in charge of wines.
Beer remains the drink of choice for many "salarymen," but younger people and women are taking a liking to Champagne, Ogata says.
"It's about the bubble ? a sense of gorgeousness," he said in a telephone interview. "There's that thrill to opening up a bottle of Champagne."
China is also emerging as a potentially strong market for a glass of fizz, although the numbers remain small. In 2011, the latest figures available, it ranked 19th in export markets for Champagne, apparently because consumers are less discriminating about precise origins. According to an EU ruling, only sparkling wine made in a particular region in northeast France is allowed to carry the name Champagne. The United States makes some exceptions, as long as the labeling is clear.
"People enjoy the 'boom' moment of opening sparkling wine. It is fun. It offers a more festive atmosphere and it tastes good," said said Yu Ming, a 29-year-old who operated a bar in Beijing's Sanlitun nightlife district until 2010. In China, he added, "people call all sparkling wine Champagne. They don't care where it is from or whether the fermentation is inside the bottle."
The sales manager at the BHG supermarket in a luxury shopping mall in Beijing confirmed that Champagne budgets are largely out of reach in China, saying most customers at the chic store will instead choose sparkling wine: "The most expensive Champagne is 7,800 yuan ($1,250) a bottle at my store, but the most expensive sparkling wine is only 268 yuan ($43)," said the manager, who gave his surname, Hou.
Chiquet, whose label Gaston Chiquet produces about 200,000 bottles a year, said France and Europe generally will remain the most important markets for Champagne. But for the numbers to climb again "we'll have to rediscover optimism."
"Champagne remains a drink for celebrating the big events of life," said Chiquet. "Happily for sales, at the end of the year, the French rely on tradition. Still, we're not going to catch up. Unfortunately, what's lost already is lost."
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Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo and researchers Fu Ting in Shanghai and Flora Ji in Beijing contributed to this report.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/champagne-loses-fizz-europe-tough-111145034--finance.html
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The founder of Pilates, Joseph H. Pilates, had some serious health problem such as asthma as a kid, he built his body and grew stronger and became an athlete. As a nurse in Great Britain during World War I, he designed exercise methods and equipment for immobilized patients and soldiers. He also developed a series of mat exercises that focus on the torso and by combining various exercise methods such as the mind-body formats of yoga and Chinese martial arts he created a new routine exercise.
Pilates has been demonstrated to reduce stress, anxiety, and helps lift depression. The mind-body connection is fundamental to the study and practice of Pilates. As you see Pilates has numerous benefits that one can attain through regular use of the exercise program. It also strengthens your body and helps prevent future injuries. Since no set of muscles is ever over or under trained, there is less risk for injury.
While most of us were enjoying the holidays with our families all over the world, someone who is related to the CEO of Facebook posted a photo of her family to friends, and then some journalist person downloaded it and tweeted it. There?s a real difference between something being private and something being personal. And that, as the aforementioned incident highlights, is a notion that a lot of people — including Randi Zuckerberg — have forgotten, online and off. What I mean by this is that just because you post something online, doesn?t mean it?s meant for public consumption. Yes, this all sounds very conflated, and yes, Facebook privacy controls are about as easy to understand as left-handed scissors for a right-handed person. However, somewhere in this slow news big news cycle, publications started to tell the story that said Facebook CEO’s sister clearly didn’t understand Facebook’s privacy controls. This is simply not true, because the photo wasn’t private, it was personal.?Allow me to explain the difference. Private As A Peacock Private: confined to or intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential: a private meeting If something is “private” in your mind, it’s probably not a good idea to share it on the Internet…anywhere. I don’t care what types of controls a social network gives you. There’s no such thing as full-on “privacy” on the Internet. Do you know what is private? A good-old-fashioned photo in a scrapbook, passed around one by one at the dinner table during the holidays. If you see someone try to pull out their phone to snap a photo for Instagram purposes, you can say “HEY! That’s private.” This can’t be done on the Internet. Once something is out there, it can be screen-shotted, captured and re-shared just as easily as it was uploaded in the first place. As we learned with Snapchat and Poke, those sexy private photos and videos aren’t really “private” either. I’m not even going to get into the difference between public and private, because I feel like that’s fairly obvious. Privacy is a lost art in humanity these days. We’re so used to sharing every darn thing that happens to us, myself included, that we have lost a sense of self, therefore leaving ourselves open to the shit show that ensued during the boringest news week of the century. No matter what Randi Zuckerberg said after the fact, people