According to the European Commission, in 2010 Italy produced 4.96 billion litres of wine compared to 4.62 billion in France, a drop of one per cent from last year. Domenico Bosco, from the Italian agricultural workers union Coldiretti, said: “This result is fruit of the fact that production has been stable in Italy while in France it has fallen.

“The increase in Italian production must also be compared to the fact that the territorial size of the French vineyards is far larger than our ones. Exports are also on the increase – up 15 per cent compared to last year, which is a very good sign.”