VSfifty years it lasts! For half a century, September, for wine lovers, no longer rhymes only with grape harvests, but also – or even above all – with wine fairs. This is the ideal month to fill the trolleys with tinkling bottles and replenish your cellar with big promotions. All supermarket brands, hypermarkets, local stores, wine merchants too, and even websites, comply religiously.
In 1973, there were only two E.Leclerc stores in Brittany, almost spontaneously carrying out a clearance operation in their parking lots – in fact, the expression “wine fair” would not germinate until two years later. Other figures allow us to measure the evolution of the phenomenon: in 1973, in the parking lot of E.Leclerc in Vannes, 80,000 bottles were sold, for a turnover of 240,000 francs; Last year, the wine fair of all the E.Leclercs in France allowed them to sell more than 9 million bottles, for a turnover of 105 million euros. If we expand to all major retail brands in France, wine fairs will total in 2022, according to a study by the NielsenIQ analysis institute, one billion euros.
Mildew attack
A success ? The word is weak. Because it must be compared to a concomitant phenomenon: the impressive decline in wine production and consumption. In 1973, France produced 82.5 million hectoliters. In 2022, according to the International Organization of Vine and Wine, it was 45.6 million hectoliters, almost half as much. As for consumption, it went from 120 liters per French person in 1973 to 44 liters today – almost three times less. So, certainly, the turnover of wine fairs has stagnated for several years, but they are not experiencing the crisis.
The crisis, on the other hand, is hitting Bordeaux hard with modestly priced bottles, particularly the low-priced region of Entre-deux-Mers (Gironde). While the Bordeaux vineyard remains the largest supplier of wines to the September fairs, it is preparing to uproot 9,500 hectares of vines before the end of the year. The reasons are multiple: fall in exports, consumers favoring light, white or rosé wines, production costs too high in the face of foreign competition, marketing lacking innovation…
In this issue we give the floor to three Bordeaux winegrowers who, having too much unsold juice, took the decision to uproot part of their vines. To make matters worse, the 2023 vintage will be cruel in the region, with an attack of mildew which affected 90% of the plots, according to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Chamber of Agriculture. Never seen. At the dawn of the harvest, we do not yet know the extent of the losses, but it is already certain that the 2023 Bordeaux will flow in small quantities. All the more reason to covet the abundant and successful 2022 and 2021 vintages at wine fairs.