Cyprus, an island with strict quarantine controls, managed to remain unaffected. As a consequence, demand for Cyprus grapes and wines coupled to the relatively high prices offered resulted in a mini boom for the industry. Further demand early in the early 20th century came from local consumption and from the regional forces of Britain and France in the Middle East. Cyprus produced quality cheap wine and spirits (mainly in the form of Cyprus brandy) and the big four companies prospered as a result. The next big export product came in the form of Cyprus sherry. It was first marketed by that name in 1937 and was exported mainly to northern Europe. By the 1960s, Britain was consuming 13.6 million litres of Cyprus wines, half the island's production, mostly as sweet sherry. A British market research study of fortified wines in 1978 showed Emva Cream was the leading Cyprus sherry in terms of brand recognition, and second in that market only to Harveys' Bristol Cream. The island became the UK's third leading wine supplier behind France and Spain. A major factor was that Cyprus sherry was more affordable than Spanish Sherry as British taxation favoured alcoholic beverages with an alcoholic content below the 15.5–18 percent bracket. This competitive advantage was lost a few years later with the re-banding of the alcohol content taxation. The fortified wine market also began to shrink as a whole due to a change in consumer taste and as a result Cyprus sherry sales in the UK fell from their peak in the early 1970s by some 65 percent by the mid 1980s. The final blow came when the EC ruled that as of January 1996 only fortified wine from Jerez could assume the title of sherry. The other big market for Cyprus wine during the same period was the Soviet bloc. Large volumes of low-quality, mass-produced, blended wines were sold to the eastern bloc with the cooperative wine producers (LOEL and SODAP) taking the lion's share. This market began to dry up in the 1980s and vanished altogether with the fall of communism. Indicative of the industry's mass production tactics comes in a report by "The Times" in 1968 commenting on "the end of an underwater pipeline off the coast of Limassol linking to tankers taking on not gas or oil but wine – 100 tons an hour of it – destined for about 40 countries throughout the world." In response to the challenges faced by the industry the Cyprus vine-products commission began efforts to overhaul the sector in order to help it survive under the new circumstances.