Mexico City, Feb 19 (EFE).- A total of 47 Spanish wine producers participated in the 7th Wines of Spain Exhibition held on Tuesday in this capital, an event designed to allow local sector professionals to get to know brands that do not yet have a presence in the Mexican market.
"The Spanish wineries continue to back this market and this exhibition is already an important reference point for Spanish wine, for the professional sector and for Mexican wine," Spain's ambassador to Mexico, Manuel Alabart, said at the inauguration ceremony.
This is the seventh edition of the show, in which assorted wineries participate with the aim of allowing Mexican importers and distributors to get to know new Spanish products.
Alabart said that Spain is the country with the greatest land area devoted to vineyards, the world's third largest wine producer and the No. 1 provider of the beverage to Mexico.
Preliminary figures, he said, point to the fact that in 2012 Spanish wine exports to Mexico exceeded $60 million in value and 13 million liters (3.43 million gallons) in volume.
"With these figures Spain continues to be the main supplier of wine to Mexico with ... 30 percent of the market in value and in volume, a position that it has been maintaining in recent years and which permits the consolidation of our leadership," he said.
In a brief meeting with reporters after his speech, Alabart said that recent violent incidents such as the raping of six Spanish women in the resort city of Acapulco on Feb. 4 will not harm trade relations between the two countries, given that "commercial exchange between the two nations goes back a long way and is very solid, very strong."
"Mexico is one of our biggest markets in the world outside the European countries and it's going to remain so. In Spain, there is great confidence in Mexico, in its economy," the envoy said.
