New World wine takes over from French favourites

The New World's invasion of the British wine market seems complete. French vin has been obliterated from the top 10 most popular wines in Britain, said a survey on Thursday.

Nine of this year's top 10 are from Australia or California and France's only presence is through the tenuous link of a distributor selling both European and New World wines.

It is the first time the top ten list has not included a French wine. Last year, Piat D'Or was holding out in ninth position but it has now fallen victim to the advance of Ernest & Julio Gallo, Jacobs Creek and Hardy's Stamps.

The top 10 is contained in the annual survey of Britain's top 50 brands compiled by research company AC Nielson for Marketing magazine.

Wine was the fastest growing sector, with sales increasing by 26.9 per cent. Seven of the ten best performing brands were Australian.

Jennifer Hiscock, the features editor of Marketing, said the New World's triumph was the result of investment in marketing as well as a changing attitude that has been adopted among wine drinkers.

She said: "New World wines attracted the novice wine buyers at first who felt safe with a branded wine but they are now being bought by wine connoisseurs and more high-brow drinkers as well".

The dominance of Australian wines also shone through in the survey's general table of fastest growing brands, where Banrock Station, Blossom Hill, Hardy's Stamps and Lindemans claimed an impressive four out of the top 20 places.

The top position was taken by an artificial sweetener, Nothing Comes Closer to Sugar, owned by Silver Spoon – sales grew by 3,191 per cent. The nation's preoccupation with health was also reflected in the growth of organic baby foods, with two, Baby Organix and Hipp, making the top ten fastest growing brands list.

Of the top 50 biggest brands overall, Coca-Cola, Walkers, Nescafe and Stella Artois kept their positions as the top four.

There was little movement among the highest positions in the list, but, elsewhere, many other well known brands saw sharp falls in sales.

The worst affected brand was Procter & Gamble's Sunny Delight drink – sales dropped by 34.6 per cent. It dropped from 16th to 42nd place, continuing the decline that has set in despite the incredibly successful launch of the juice drink aimed at children when sales rose by 5,224 per cent in 1999.