Funding unlocked to distill part of the surplus, reflection on aid in order to accompany the winegrowers who would tear off their vines … The sector has faced for years from a movement of deconstation.
By Laurence Girard
Red alert on Bordeaux and Languedoc vineyards! Once again, the siren of the crisis was triggered. A call for help heard by the government which sketched, on Monday, February 6, the main lines of a support plan for these wine regions shaken by an overproduction crisis.
The State first undertakes to provide aid to try to mop up the surplus of wine that stagnate in the tanks. The idea is to finance a distillation of wine to transform it into alcohol (pharmaceutical or food). “We estimate the total volume of wine to be distilled at 2.5 million or even 3 million hectoliters,” says Jérôme Despey, winegrower in Hérault and secretary general of the FNSEA union, who details ventilation by large basins: ” Nearly 1.5 million hectoliters for Languedoc, around 700,000 hectoliters for Bordeaux, the rest are mainly distributed between the Rhône valley and the South-East. “
The professionals claimed for this purification of stocks, mainly reds but also rosés, an envelope of 200 million euros. The Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, has, for the moment, promised a check for 160 million euros. The State had paid an equivalent amount for a similar distillation operation, barely three years ago.
a sharp drop in sales in large distribution
In 2020, the wine sector underwent the effects of the Trump tax penalizing wines exports to the United States. Above all, she was jostled by the crisis linked to the COVVI-19. Confainment measures, the closure of bars and restaurants and stopping the flow of foreign tourists had made sales plunge for a while. Again, Languedoc was largely at the top of the requests for distillation, followed by Aquitaine.
This time, professionals evoke the deconstation of red wine in France. A trend that is part of a history of more than half a century. The sharp drop in sales in large distribution in 2022, estimated between 10 % and 15 %, helped to destabilize the market. This is the case for Bordeaux, which sells more than half of its volumes in major brands. This region is also hit hard by stalling its sales on the Chinese market, its first export zone since 2015. “In 2022, the decline in exports to China is 25 % to 30 %”, specifies Bernard Farges, Chairman of the National Committee of Wine Interprofessions of Controlled appellations.
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