Cognac sales fall to 140 million bottles, caught between China and US tariffs
Victoria Shinder2 min readCognac, a brandy made only around the Charente river in south-western France and 98% exported outside the EU, is having another hard year. Euronews reports, citing industry figures, that sales have fallen from 230 million bottles in 2023 to 140 million, and that the four main houses - Rémy Martin, Hennessy, Martell and Courvoisier - have cut their orders from growers after customers cancelled contracts.
The industry describes two blows. The first came from China, its second-largest market at around a quarter of exports. In 2024, days after the EU imposed tariffs of up to 35.3% on Chinese electric vehicles, Beijing imposed provisional duties of up to 34.8% on European brandy. It later confirmed the measures but exempted major producers that agreed to sell above undisclosed minimum prices. Raphaël Delpech, director of the industry body BNIC, told Euronews the sector had been collateral damage in the EV dispute, and that distributors stopped stocking Cognac once it was associated with European policy. The second blow came from the United States, which takes around half of exports: the EU-US agreement reached at Turnberry in July 2025 set a 15% tariff on most European goods, including Cognac. Scotch whisky secured removal of US tariffs in May and Irish whiskey in mid-September; Cognac has not.
The industry has written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and President Emmanuel Macron has promised growers compensation, which has not yet arrived. A scheme paying growers to remove vines permanently has drawn applications for 560 hectares of the appellation's 96,000; a drought this year cut harvests by 30-40% in economic terms, which one grower said at least brings supply closer to demand. The sector supports around 70,000 direct and indirect jobs.
What it means
Retaliation is rarely aimed at the sector that caused a dispute. Cognac is the textbook case of a product chosen because it was politically visible and export-dependent, and the damage has outlasted the measures that caused it: even with exemptions for large houses in China, shelf space lost is slow to recover.
The BNIC's broader argument - that EU trade policy needs a mechanism to support sectors hit by retaliation for measures taken on behalf of others - is the policy question the case raises. The contrast with whisky, which won US tariff relief through separate UK and Irish arrangements, sharpens it.