Britain has overtaken Germany to become the world’s biggest importer of wine, shipping a total of more than 1.6 billion bottles from wine-producing nations such as Italy, France, Spain, America and Australia, according to figures out today.

Despite the recession, the growth in wine consumption is expected to continue, with figures from Vinexpo, the French wine and spirits exhibition, predicting that imports will grow by a further 120 million bottles by 2012 to more than 1.7 billion bottles.

The research, compiled by IWSR, the drinks industry specialist, show that wine-drinking in Britain, where only a fraction of consumption is home grown, grew more than 12 per cent over the five years between 2003 and 2007 to 135.8 million cases, and will grow by a further 5.9 per cent to 144 million cases by 2012.

In the five years to 2007, consumption grew from 24.6 litres a person to 27.2 litres, and is predicted to reach 28.3 lires over the next five yeras.

But Britain is still only thirteenth in the wine-drinking league table, a position that is unlikely to change in the near future. The top five countries for wine consumption are France, at 58.8 liters a head, followed by Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and Austria.

Although white wine is still the favourite tipple among British wine drinkers, rosé continues to grow rapidly at the expense of red.

Last year Britons drank an estimated 764 million bottles of white wine, a figure that is expected to rise to 823 million over the next five yeras, while consumption of red is set to decline from 720 million bottles to 687 million.

The number of bottles of rosé drunk last year reached 150 million, but this is expected to rise by 47 per cent to 220 million in 2012.

The value of UK wine sales is forecast by IWSR to reach about £3.5 billion in 2012, up from £3.3 billion last year.

The leading suppliers to Britain are Australia, France, America, Italy and Spain.

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