Click to be added!Wine wars ping.
Posted on 04/30/2005 8:51:06 PM PDT by quantim
Cheers erupt as 30,000 bottles worth of Spanish wine gush out of the hijacked tanker, pumping a blood-red river down the street of a village in the south of France.
In front of our eyes, the region's wine "terrorists" - blamed for a string of recent bomb and incendiary attacks - have struck again.
Clearly shaken, the tanker's Spanish driver looks on as about 100 angry wine-growers force his younger assistant to unscrew a silver wheel on the tanker's roof to release its pungent load.
"I count myself lucky," says the driver, Francico Paque, 42, who was asleep in his cabin earlier when masked militants blew a hole in his diesel tank with a shotgun and set the leaking fuel on fire. "If I hadn't been woken by the explosion I could have burnt to death where I lay," he says.
Mr Paque had parked his vehicle for the night outside a wine merchant in the village of Clermont l'Hérault, near Béziers in Languedoc and Roussillon - the most productive wine region in the world.
He was supposed to deliver the wine in the morning. Instead, members of a shadowy group of extremist producers known as the Crav, Comité Regional d'Action Viticoles (Regional Action Committee of Wine-growers), decided to pour it down the drain.
There is a deepening crisis in France's wine industry, fuelled by dwindling consumption, a glut in national and world production, and competition from New World and other European wines.
Australia recently replaced France as Britain's top wine supplier. At home, annual adult consumption has halved since the 1960s from 100 litres to 50.
Wine-growers complain that they used to be paid three or four euros a litre. Now they are lucky to get one euro. Their revenue is down by as much as 40 per cent compared with last year, and barrels linger in cellars. Many caves, wine co-operatives, which store and sell much of the region's vin de pays - non-appellation "country wine", a notch above the most humble vin de table - can no longer afford to pay producers.
The Crav, which was unknown until recently, has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on government buildings and supermarkets. Sticks of dynamite were thrown at agriculture ministry offices in Montpellier and Carcassonne last month, causing serious damage but no injuries. A car was burnt outside ministry offices in Nîmes. In an apparent protest against the power of multinational companies, activists also blew off the cellar door at La Baume winery, near Béziers, and scrawled graffiti on the walls.
"Many people in that part of France understand that the world is changing and people are no longer content to drink cheap vin de pays," said Tim North, the United Kingdom director of Les Grands Chais de France, which owns La Baume and is the country's biggest wine exporter. "But there are others who have not moved with the times and they have strong feelings against global companies."
The attack in Clermont l'Hérault was sparked by the decision of a local wine merchant to buy Spanish, rather than French, wine.
At dawn, one of the group's commando units immobilised the vehicle with the shotgun. Once the gunmen had vanished into the surrounding vineyards, local vintners took over, crowding round the tanker before emptying it in front of local television crews.
Gendarmes arrived too late to chase the gunmen, but could still have saved 25,000 litres of Spanish wine. Instead they watched impassively from their blue van as the foamy red liquid splashed past.
"You have to weigh it up," a gendarme said. "We have opened an investigation into the shooting, of course. But as for the wine, we have to think of public order first. These vintners are furious. They still have almost half of their wine from last year's harvest in their cellars, so when a local wine merchant buys a truck-load of Spanish wine and not theirs, they need to let off steam. I cannot oppose social action."
When an irate breakaway group of protesters marches through the front door of the wine-dealer to collar the owner, the police still do not act. The owner, a middle-aged woman who has run the business since her husband died last year, bravely faces down the protesters.
"Yes, we buy Spanish wine because it is cheaper," she says. "We cannot afford to buy local wine - our margins are so low because of the wine crisis that we have no choice, or we will go under. We are all in the same boat."
This coastal plain is famed for its passionate defence of wine. Yet even for hot-blooded Languedociens, tension has been particularly high in recent months.
"Pull any wine-grower's name out of a hat and the chances are he will be steeped in debt," said Philippe Vergnes, the president of the wine-growers' union of the Aude area. "The young ones have it the worst. The old cannot retire as they can find no takers for their land."
Many feel that French wine does not receive enough protection on the home market, and are angry about rising imports from Spain and Italy, where lower social charges and less red tape enable producers to sell their goods more cheaply. There are rumours that other European producers are fraudulently mixing Italian or Spanish wines with South American fare, even slapping a "Made in France" label on such mixes once they cross the border.
Outrage over such fraud led to the region's first and most deadly wine riots in 1907, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Narbonne, and six people were killed when the army opened fire on the protesters.
Perhaps the chief villains of the piece in local growers' eyes are supermarket chains, which have maintained their shelf prices while producers have dropped theirs, and pocketed the difference.
Dominique Bussereau, the agriculture minister, has blamed the violence on "a few isolated individuals". Last week, nonetheless, the government doubled its offer of emergency aid to wine producers to €140 million (£95 million). The growers were not impressed.
"Two times zero is still zero" came the response from 10,000 angry growers who mounted a demonstration in Narbonne that ended in scuffles and tear gas.
Although no vintner will admit being a member of Crav, the group's links with the region's wine-growers' unions is an open secret. "The Crav is the armed wing of unionism in the Languedoc," said Mr Vergnes. One of the network's senior members confirmed that it had "hundreds" of sleeper cells around Languedoc. Local units in four departments carry out low-level attacks, while regional commandos unite for "tougher" operations involving explosives.
"Unfortunately, violence appears to be the only way of getting the government and other unco-operative parties to take notice."
The wine-growers have called another protest for later this month, days before the referendum on the EU constitution. The government is desperate for France to vote Yes - and every vintner's vote could count.
There are fears that the situation could get out of hand. "I don't think the government realises just how explosive it is," said Jean-Luc Granier, 51, one of the few wine militants to have been convicted in recent years.
"The unions are containing the growers for now. But unless their demands are met, we are heading for another 1907."
Click to be added!Wine wars ping.
That's unions for you.
The wine deliverers need more stealth. They should label their tankers "Port-a-Potty."
If the new EU costitution is passed, you will see a lot more problems very similar to this in all industries.
As the Muslim population increases, watch wine consumption fall further. Sacre bleu mon ami. Time for a revolution
What's with the ending line in reference to 1907?
Decent wine is still very cheap in France, here in the US the Chilean stuff is a good deal as well as "Two Buck Chuck's" out of Kalleefornya.
Maybe these Frogs don't remember that when the Aphid took out all of the vineyards of Bourdeaux in the 19th Century, it was SPAIN that supplied them with wine for about 40 years. A Frenchman never remembers the good deeds of others.
Best wines $10 and under come from Chile and Argentina (particularly Malbec from the later country). I had a Bonny Doon Vineyard Big House Red blend (from Santa Cruz, CA, with a screwcap!) no too long ago that I picked up for about $7.99. Not too bad, though I would never serve it as a side to prime rib.
The obvious (Froggish) solution is to simply pass a new law requiring increasing consumption to 1/2 liter/day.
With no (it is a 'secularist nation', dontcha know?) exemption for religious beliefs.
After all, it doesn't really matter if the 'consumer' drinks it, bathes in it, or simply pours it down the toilet.
There, all fixed.
Another Socialist solution is for the government to buy the vinyards, plow up & burn the vines, then sell the land back to the farmers at 1/4 what they were paid; and give them "assistance" with raising new crops.
Indeed...this whole account sounds like sour grapes to me. It seems the Spanish wine industry may soon have the French over a barrel, but the French will try to take them to cask. This will ferment a lot of animosity between the two nations, and efforts to chill any acidty will only make them madeira and lead to further acts of terroir-ism.
Try TJ's Chilean Char - $3.99 on the east coast. Fabulous, at least right now. Next year it will probably be different.
One more reason to boycott french wines!
Wine is such a terrible waste of good grape juice.
We have always enjoyed the Bonny Doon "Big House Red" as an "everyday" wine. Try their "Cardinal Zin". It's about $19.00 a bottle and very good.
Typical French reaction. The loss of all that Rioja is a real shame, though.
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