Megavino 2007 in Brussels

Megavino brings 260 wine growers from 21 countries to the wine loving part of Belgium. ( October 19-22, Heizel, Brussels)
According to studies done at the University of Paris, Belgium is a test market for wine exporters. Belgium is thé middle point of the european wine market.

Total wine import: 350 million bottles - that makes 35 bottles a man. (’Self-import’ done by travelling Belgians not included.) That immense flood of wine represent a market value of 1,12 billion euro - or just about 3 euros a bottle.
Almost 70% is wine of French origin, mainly simple Bordeaux and Rhône wines. Italy and Spain finish second and third.
Wine sales in Belgium are still growing, with thanks to women and youngsters, whose wine consumption still increases. Women are said to prefer white wines, youngsters rosé and screwcaps…

European winemakers forced to shake it up

Few wine merchants saw the ominous signs when Bordeaux produced a magnificent harvest in 1995, sending the prices for some of France's most prestigious wines upward.
Surely, the famously oenophile Europeans would continue to flock to French cellars. After all, more than nine out of 10 bottles Willy Goorden sold in his shop outside Brussels at that time carried those ornate French labels.
But the excellent French vintage also held the seeds of a curse.
"When the 1995 Bordeaux came onto the market two years later, it was very expensive, often double in price. People were shocked looking at the price tag," Goorden said.
On Wednesday, the European Union executive office proposed a total overhaul of the bloated sector, which now spends more than $700 million a year just turning unsalable wine into industrial alcohol.
Colruyt wine purchaser Freddy Steens has seen the New World wines take over the under-5 euro ($7) bracket in the past dozen years to account for 90% of volume now. READ USA TODAY