Exclusive Winners and losers of the millennium party are revealed in some of the first data available on the drinks sector. The runaway successes identified by the Taylor Nelson Sofres Liquorpanel for the eight weeks to January 9 were champagne, sparkling wine and premixed spirits. The worst performers were stout and fortified wines. And the predicted sales boost for still wine failed to materialise. It could manage only 9% growth while total alcohol was up 16%. The key dynamic is that consumers traded up and out of still wine into sparkling. At the same time as the trade was ensuring there were few out of stocks by building up supplies to cater for the unprecedented demand, consumers were planning ahead and taking advantage of lower prices across the Channel. Estimates of the sales boost caused by the millennium were put at 20%, but it failed to reach that level. Things went according to plan for the brewers with beer sales up 16%. A dull performance by ales (+4.9%) was compensated for by lager, which grew by 26.4%. At the period of peak demand in November and December, sales were growing by 30%. In marked contrast, though, wine sales rose sharply at the beginning of December (+16%), but that was as good as it got. In the final weeks sales hit a plateau at that level, increasing by 0.6%. The lion's share of wine sales went to Tesco (28.4%), although the figure is slightly down on last year. Sainsbury increased its share by 2.6% to 23.3%. The best result came from Morrison, which boosted its share of the sector by 84% to 4.8%. As usual at this time of year, ranges are being cleared out but there are a larger number of special deals across the trade. Safeway, Asda, CWS, Budgens and First Quench all admit to having some surpluses after Christmas. The figures measure sales in the multiples and co-ops. {{DRINKS }}