Bordeaux, the most famous vineyard in the world, is facing an unprecedented crisis which has led its winegrowers to demand state aid to uproot the vines, in the face of mounting problems such as the drop in consumption of red and exports.
In the Gironde department, whose capital is Bordeaux, vineyards line the roads for miles and miles. Most companies make a living from wine, or supply the sector with what it needs: packaging, tools, construction, etc.
Of the 115,000 hectares dedicated to vineyards, producers want to remove at least 10% of the territory and are asking the Executive for financial compensation and aid to get rid of the abundant “stock”.
“80 or 85% of our vineyards produce red wine and today in France and on other export markets there is a drop in consumption and an overproduction of red wine”, explains Stéphane Gabard, winegrower and head of association of the Appellation d’Origine Bordeaux. and Bordeaux Superior.
Gabard assures that the region was the first to sound the alarm which is already starting to sound in other regions of the country. Crises have followed one another since confinement: a geopolitical context which has not given rise to the resumption of foreign trade, climatic conditions which complicate harvests and growing competition.
Consumption is nothing new. At the end of the Second World War, the consumption of red wine in France amounted to 120 liters per year and per inhabitant, today it is at 40 liters and it is expected that in the years to come it will continues to drop to 25 liters.
Health habits have changed, but so have the ways of socializing: today there are fewer big meals or family gatherings that encourage drinking red wine as an accompaniment to meals. Instead, more white or rosé wine is consumed at aperitifs and social gatherings.
Thus, vineyards in other more diverse regions have not felt the blow as pronounced as this veteran wine region, which in the previous decade had been forced to renew itself to shed a somewhat outdated brand image.
The government, which had initially turned a deaf ear to the protests of recent months, gave the green light this month to the distillation of the remaining stock, with two campaigns between July and October estimated at 160 million euros in 2023 and which will be financed by State and European Union funds.
The objective is to finish with 2.5 million hectoliters of wine, mainly red, when the professionals assure that the surplus is 3 million all denominations combined.
But the sector intends to make new announcements on the occasion of the start of the Paris Agricultural Show this Saturday.
“The president and the minister of agriculture will come into the room and they have promised announcements. But if they are disappointing, my colleagues and I will protest against this policy,” said Gabard, whose union represents a majority of the most of 5,000 vineyards in the region. .
They want to avoid that there are companies that are forced to lower prices too much and lose image value, but also to help older winegrowers – and with less capacity to adapt to the new market – to be able to retire with dignity, transforming their vineyards into another type of farming operation.
FINANCIAL COMPENSATION AND DIVERSIFICATION
Not all vineyards want to tear off part of their surface, but many are those who claim that they will reduce the hectares of cultivation for several years while waiting to see how the situation evolves.
The unions are claiming compensation of 10,000 euros per hectare for a total removal of 15,000 hectares. Other regions, such as Languedoc or the Côte du Rhône, have not yet made estimates of the areas that should be uprooted.
On February 17, during the last National Assembly of the Syndicate of Independent Vineyards of Gironde, which brings together some 2,500 winegrowers, the crisis in the sector was the protagonist of the meeting.
The head of the agricultural diversification sector of the Gironde Chamber of Agriculture, François Rauscher, intervened to promote a campaign started in 2021 encouraging citizens to invest in the use of land for forest management, energy, tourism and local agriculture.
According to the institution, 28% of vineyards in difficulty wish to dedicate their land to new tasks.