(Wine Searcher) - Despite all the challenges facing the French wine industry, producers there have one reason to be cheerful at least – their wines are still the most popular on the planet.

Data from Wine-Searcher's comprehensive database presented at the Wine Paris exhibition in France last night showed that rumours of French wine's demise at the hands of New World competitors are greatly exaggerated, advertising and key accounts manager Nicholas Oakes told his audience of mostly French wine professionals.

In the 12 months to January 31, 2019, French wines accounted for 31 percent of all 4,179,908 bottle-size wine offers listed on Wine-Searcher, a number that has remained remarkably steady across the past five years. Of the more than 156 million wine searches made by users in the same time frame, almost 75m, or 48 percent, were looking for French wines.