German wine exports in 2007 are set to pass records set last year, the German Wine Institute reports.

In the first six months of 2007, some 150m liters of German wine worth €305m have already been exported ¨C a 25% increase compared to the same half-year period in 2006.

On present form, figures will easily surpass the 290m liters of wine worth €561m sold abroad in 2006 ¨C the highest figure since 1975, when the country exported only about 77m liters worth €119m.

In 2006, the UK continued to be the most important export market for German wine, with an export volume of 82m liters valued at €128m.

But recently German wine producers have proven particularly successful in the US, where wine sales ¨C almost exclusively Riesling ¨C reached €100m, equal to an increase of 29% over the past year.

"This is especially good for us because we are seeing exports rise in terms of both quantity and value," German Wine Institute representative Ernst B¨¹scher said.

It's enough to make some French winemakers jealous "when looking across the Rhine," the German economics weekly Wirtschafts Woche reported.

(Quoted from website of German Wine Institute/Mainz)