One last week and a challenging year in many ways comes to an end.

Corona pandemic, war in Ukraine, inflation worries, energy price shock: 2022 is “a year to forget” for many citizens and should therefore be remembered for a long time.

After all, the recently published studies and surveys by the major German sparkling wine producers suggest that a forgiving and enjoyable end to the year with the family could possibly brighten the rather depressed mood again.

It is true that we Germans find it more difficult than other nations to openly show joie de vivre.

But at Christmas it is said that people are not stingy.

Good food and drink are served during the festive season, and New Year's Eve is reason enough for around half of Germans to open a bottle of sparkling wine.

The question arises as to what the other half intends to do to toast what will hopefully be a more enjoyable year in every respect.

Anachronistic consumption tax

In any case, the lure offers from the big supermarkets with cheap sparkling wine do not really fit in with the supposed German hedonism in the last week of the year.

Anyone who roughly calculates what investments a sparkling wine producer has to make in the bottle, label, closure, sparkling wine, bottling, logistics and distribution should be slightly shocked to find out at what price the raw material, i.e. the base wine, is imported from neighboring European countries so that the supermarket or discounter around the corner can advertise with prices of three euros or less per bottle - including 19 percent VAT and more than one euro sparkling wine tax.

This anachronistic consumption tax should have been abolished long ago.

Not only because the imperial fleet, for the maintenance of which it was introduced in 1902, has long gone under.

It was lowered to zero during the Weimar Republic, but then raised again to finance the German U-boat war.

Since then she has accompanied the champagne lover.

He would do well to focus more on regional and seasonal products when it comes to sparkling wine.

The German Winzersekt has experienced a phenomenal increase in quality in recent years.

Just the right stuff to say goodbye to a year like 2022.