For the first time since 2004, Bordeaux winegrowers are calling on the profession to take to the streets. They are asking for 150 million euros in order to “save the industry”, which is currently in great difficulty.
Overproduction, falling prices, sales and reputation at half mast: with the exception of the grands crus which still attract investors, Bordeaux is going through a serious crisis. Faced with this situation, the Viti 33 collective calls for demonstrations this Tuesday from Place des Quinconces, in Bordeaux, at 9:30 a.m., with the slogan: “Save viticulture!“. Objective: to obtain a grubbing-up premium.
Several local elected officials and Girondin deputies have already expressed their desire to participate in this gathering, unprecedented since 2004. At the time, 8,000 winegrowers had beaten the pavement in Bordeaux, making this march the most important in the country. But since then, the situation has not really improved. “They listen to us but they don’t hear us», Storm Bastien Mercier, winegrower, mayor of Camiran (Gironde) and member of the Viti 33 collective. «We have the impression that we want a natural purification, that we represent nothing for our country», Regrets this elected official, himself in receivership.
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The winegrowers, mainly the small productions, especially in the South Gironde, are in great difficulty. Several factors “slappedto winegrowers, he points out, with the loss of certain markets and production that has become higher than consumption. The closure of restaurants and wine shops during the Covid-19 epidemic has also made matters worse for these winegrowers. “We’re slowly dying“, confided to AFP a producer from Entre-Deux-Mers, a particularly affected sector, during a meeting to prepare the Bordeaux procession.
15,000 hectares to be uprooted
“We are asking for 150 million euros to save the sector“, insists Bastien Mercier. The collective wants to uproot 15,000 hectares of vines, for a premium of 10,000 euros per hectare. These bonuses should, according to the Girondin winegrower, allow retirees with rent to complete their retirement, help those who want to sell their vines, and finally allow the new generation of winegrowers to finance a semi-reconversion by tearing off a part of their vineyard. “It is a social plan that we ask for», explains Bastien Mercier. For him, the mounting pressure is becoming more and more difficult, and could lead to “human dramasif nothing is done to remedy the situation.
The Bordeaux vineyard has already resorted to uprooting, in the 2000s, when prices suffered from global overproduction. “We were coming out of good years and we had reserves, we were able to hold on and go up“says Patrick Vasseur, retired. The premium was significant but only 3,500 hectares had been uprooted “because everyone still believed in it“Adds the former departmental head of the FNSEA union. “During the years 1980-90, we planted excessively and today we find ourselves with a million hectoliters of excess stock“Summarizes Didier Cousiney, head of the Viti 33 collective.We no longer sell anything and there are no longer any trading prices.»
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At the beginning of November, while an American billionaire bought a prestigious domain in the Margaux appellation, the CIVB, the local inter-branch organization, suspended the quotation of wines sold in bulk – around 40% of production – on the grounds that displayed prices would no longer be representative and would destabilize the entire market. For the Bordeaux red appellation, the largest in volume, the 900-litre barrel has fallen to around 600 euros, or a few tens of cents per liter, when it would take double to cover current costs, say the winegrowers.
The discussions started with the public authorities stumble on the conditioning of the premium to an agricultural reconversion of the plots concerned by the uprooting. Most winegrowers do not want to hear about it: many feel that they have passed the age or do not have the means to reinvent themselves. For them, “the solution is uprooting, and that’s it“. Problem: the current legislation does not allow it. On Tuesday, the demonstrators will therefore march to the prefecture, with the hope that their demands will be heard.