(FOX NEWS) -- Now this is just cham-painful.
Fox News reports global sales of champagne are predicted to fizzle by a third in 2020, as food serving establishments remain closed, social gatherings for special occasions are canceled and people have less to celebrate during the pandemic.
The champagne industry is projected to lose about $1.9 billion this year because of the coronavirus health crisis, the champagne producers’ group CIVC told Reuters on Thursday. At present, about 100 million bottles of the golden bubbly are expected to go unsold.
The estimates were drawn from a 75 percent plummet in April and May, CIVC said. Group co-chairman Jean-Marie Barillere speculated that sales of the sparkling wine will remain below-average until the end of the year, despite the traditionally festive holiday season.
“We hope it will improve when hotel, cafes and restaurants reopen and people return to a more normal and more optimistic life, but it is hard to say how fast that happens,” Barillere explained. “We are preparing to difficult times ahead.”
The COVID-19 crisis could even shoot repercussions through the industry for years, for incredibly somber reasons.
“When someone loses a job or someone dies in his family, they don’t want to celebrate, so we’ll certainly see that risk hitting us for several years,” CIVC co-chairman Maxime Toubart said.
Last year, producers sold a record $5.5 billion worth of champagne, at nearly 300 million bottles.
In what might be a sign of the times, sales for cheap beer were recently up as the pandemic continues.
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