Wiesbaden, Germany - Italy remained the top exporter of wine to Germany in 2007 amid increasing competition from Chile and South Africa, the Federal Statistics Office said Friday. Some 507 million litres of the 1.3 billion litres of wine imported by Germany last year came from Italy, 2.5 per cent less than 2006, the statistics office said.
The total value of the imported wine was 1.5 billion euros (2.25 billion dollars), of which 543 million euros went to Italian producers.
Following Italy came France with 219 million litres and Spain with 199 million litres, the statistics office said.
Chile was the biggest non-European exporter, accounting for 63 million litres - a gain of 38 per cent. Imports of South African wine were up 50.9 per cent to 58 million litres.
US wines were down 0.5 per cent to 46 million litres, while imports of Australian wines rose 13.5 per cent to 45 million litres.
