Posted on 07/05/2007 4:31:59 PM PDT by blam
French wine growers in crisis
By Henry Samuel in Olonzac
Last Updated: 2:25am BST 05/07/2007
As Richard Bourchet gazed across a dusty mass of gnarled, upturned vines in Olonzac, in the Corbières, south-western France, the European wine reform announced yesterday was far from his mind.
Unable to pay his bills, 'vigneron' Richard Bourchet has been forced to destroy his vines in Olonzac, south-west France
Only a few hours before these vines were neatly aligned and bearing the local carignan grapes but, unable to pay his bills, Mr Bourchet has uprooted several hectares that he has carefully tended for 25 years. In return, he will receive a few thousand euros in European subsidies to "definitively grub up" the vines.
"I come from a family of wine growers. I had hoped to pass my vineyards on to my children but my pockets are empty: we can no longer carry on a thousand-year-old tradition of wine making. It's an emotional moment," he said, staring at the grape graveyard rotting in the midday sun.
Mr Bourchet is just one of many small-scale "vignerons" (wine growers) in the Languedoc and Roussillon region who are prepared to grub up to avoid bankruptcy after three years of losses.
He said times were so bad that several winegrowers had committed suicide since the beginning of the year.
Local wine producers are furious that their sale prices have been slashed by around 50 per cent while wine prices in shops and supermarkets have not dipped. A litre of vin de pays is sold for as little as 0.35 euros (24p) and costs 10 times that amount in supermarkets. "Someone is pocketing the difference and we want to know who," he said.
Anger boiled into violence earlier this week when members of a shadowy group of militant winegrowers, known as Crav - the Regional Committee of Viticultural Action - threw sticks of dynamite at regional offices of the co-operative-run cellars that stock and sell their wine. In May, balaclava-clad members of the group issued an ultimatum to President Nicolas Sarkozy, warning him that if he failed to help winegrowers, blood would be spilled.
However their main problem is not their cut but actually selling the wine, as supply far outstrips demand. National consumption is dropping and imports of New World wine into the EU have risen by 10 per cent each year since 1996, squeezing out low- to mid-range home-grown wines such as those found in Languedoc. The European Commission adopted a reform yesterday designed to counter the rise of New World wines, reduce Europe's wine lake and redirect funds towards promoting European wines abroad.
The EU has an annual budget of 1.3 billion euros (£880 million) to help the wine sector but currently spends around 500 million euros a year simply getting rid of wine for which there is no market.
"If we do not reform, excess wine production is forecast to reach 15 per cent of annual production by 2010," warned the European Union's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel.
The reform will be presented to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers later this year and the Commission expects it to come into force by next August. Key measures include encouraging farmers to grub up 200,000 hectares of vineyards and leave the sector, ending subsidies for exports and the distillation of unsold wine. It would also abolish the use of sugar for enrichment - a process called chaptalisation. An annual 120 million euros will go into marketing and promoting EU wines abroad. It also wants to simplify labelling rules to allow better branding of EU wines.
However, in Olonzac, vignerons were deeply unhappy about the EU plan. Bertrand Rouanet, president of the union of winegrowers for the Hérault region, said: "We reject the reform outright as it is nothing less than the organised assassination of the Languedoc vineyards."
Grubbing up vines to stay afloat, he said, while tempting, would not solve France's wine crisis: "Half the vines the commission wants to uproot are in Languedoc, but paradoxically it doesn't want to regulate planting new vines. In Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary - they're planting like crazy," he said.
The commission wants to end from 2014 restrictions on plantings, to allow successful producers to expand as long as there is a market for their wine.
Joël Castany, president of Europe's wine grape growers' association, who has vineyards in the region, was opposed to such a measure. "Grapevines are not like wheat or peas that can be planted one year and ripped up the next," he said, adding that the reform was "technically, economically and socially faulty", and that he expected the French government to reject it.
Quality wine producers were unhappy about opening protected labelling rules to allow all wines to indicate vintage and grape variety on the bottles.
By contrast, the CEEV wine trade association welcomed the reform. "If we wish to remain world leader, we need a market-oriented [approach] allowing European wines to be more competitive both in the internal market and in the external markets," said Lamberto Vallarino Gancia, head of the CEEV.
whine, whine, whine...
Before anyone expresses the typical moronic glee, we should remember that France has just elected a President and a Chamber of Deputees that is fiercely pro-America and supports the war on terror. In the last election, the United States elected a Congress that is fiercely anti-American and opposes the war on terror.
By contrast, the CEEV wine trade association welcomed the reform. "If we wish to remain world leader, we need a market-oriented [approach] allowing European wines to be more competitive both in the internal market and in the external markets," said Lamberto Vallarino Gancia, head of the CEEV.Duh. Protectionism never works.
Is this about ‘wine growing’ or ‘the whine growing’?
You thread-killer. LOL You’re right of course, but...
Not too unhappy about this, as a minister of the French goverment is a truther, http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x1c5tv_sarkozy-contre-bush, and thinks Bush is behind the 9/11 attacks. The attitude of the interviewer is also disgusting.
Here is her email: cboutin@assemblee-nationale.fr
And here is the French Embassy’s US contact page: http://www.ambafrance-us.org/comment.asp
Let the grapes rot. I’ve had enough.
Good lord, apparently, wine prices are worth murdering for, but defending the country from Islamist infiltration is not. I guess the wine-terrorists will show up once all alcohol is banned under Sharia.
Thnik that maybe they’ll like some cheese to go with their whine? :0)
Are you suggesting that if these winegrowers can just hang on for a while longer, the negative feelings many Americans have towards France may change and we may start buying French wine again? If so, you may be right.
Pro-American? You haven’t seen the French Government’s minister, C. Boutin, videotaped saying that Bush is behind 9/11?
http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x1c5tv_sarkozy-contre-bush
Pro-American?
Sure.
I thought they grew grapes.
Good. Hope are wonderful Washington State wine industry is helping bury the french.
As an aside, this line struck me:
“He said times were so bad that several winegrowers had committed suicide since the beginning of the year.”
The reporter passes this along as fact without any information beyond “he said.” You should see what the Palestinians SAY about the Israelis!
Every country needs to start demanding that their press report facts and not emotional stories with unverified hearsay.
What I'm suggesting is that it is unbelievably absurd and idiotic for a "conservative" to boycott wine from conservative Sarkozy's France if he buys it instead from Lynn Woolsey's Sonoma, California.
sounds like sour grapes to me...
Well said, and all too true.
The EU has an annual budget of 1.3 billion euros (£880 million) to help the wine sector but currently spends around 500 million euros a year simply getting rid of wine for which there is no market.
I would like to know why it takes so much money to get rid of so much wine? I know a lot of people who would dispose of it for them for free.:)
Christine Boutin is Housing minister (not exactly in a position to affect Franco-American relations), and the only reason she has that portfolio is because she's a strong social conservative and because not appointing her would be seen as a major snub by Sarkozy to religious conservatives.
If you think that Boutin's views are shared by the rest of the Government, you're living in la-la land.
Please recall that wine, even cheap French wine has alcohol.
Alcohol is forbidden by Islam.
Therefore, the death of the wine industry is a boon for Islam and therefore the New France.
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