Bordeaux wineries swap grape for grain to stem losses
Farmers rip up vineyards to grow cereals as extreme weather, falling demand and EU rules take their toll
At the Chateau des Arras, scars of a hailstorm are still visible. Holes the size of cricket balls leave jagged silhouettes in the top-floor windows. Above, a rumpled piece of tarpaulin covers a section of broken roof.
Such storms are not uncommon in this part of France but one in 2022 was particularly ferocious, raining down destruction on the family-owned vineyard and its 15th-century castle.
“We lost everything. The roof, the windows. All the grapes were destroyed,” said owner Marie-caroline Rozier.
But it’s not just hailstones plaguing her vineyard.
“Stupid” EU rules, overproduction and dwindling consumption, increasingly “extreme” weather events linked to climate change and falling custom from China are all taking their toll.
Some winemakers, like Mariecaroline, are ripping up old vines and planting alternatives, while many more have joined the recent tractor protests strangling Europe.
“After [the hailstorm] I put all the figures on my desk, counted all the costs and I decided to stop,” Mariecaroline said. “We reached a point where we couldn’t spend more hours on the business.”
The chateau and its 19-hectare estate have sustained four generations of the Rozier family. At one point it would have had 10 staff; now it’s just Marie-caroline.
Bordeaux is one of the largest wine-producing regions of France: its vintages can sell for thousands at auction.
In Bordeaux, one in three winemakers has sunk into financial peril, according to the regional farmers’ association.
The reasons are an oversupply of wine and low prices, but the region’s problems go back decades when changing tastes and foreign competition started to rock Bordeaux’s once unassailable position in the world.
In the 1990s, China threw the industry a lifeline as it developed a taste for fine wines. In the 2000s, winemakers replanted uprooted vines years later to continue supplying the Chinese.
In hindsight, it reflected the “stupid system” of the EU paying winemakers to take out their vines with no conditions not to replant them, said Lydia Coudert, head of sales at the Coudert vineyard.
The rude awakening came when China’s consumption of Bordeaux began to fall in 2017, and since Covid and the slowdown of its economy, demand has dropped massively. Though still the biggest importer of Bordeaux, China’s imported volume dropped 54 per cent in the five years to 2022.
Compounding the problem is a US tax of 25 per cent on European goods levied by then-president Donald Trump in 2019 and disruptions caused by Brexit.
Meanwhile, at home, the French have become more partial to a beer or cocktail than wine. According to Christophe Chateau of the Bordeaux wine council, the average French person now drinks 40 litres of wine a
‘After the hailstorm I put all the figures on my desk, counted the cost and decided to stop’
year – about half a bottle of wine a week – compared with 150 litres in the 1950s.
“Our strategy now will be to produce less wine,” said Mr Chateau. To that end, the French government has disbursed €200m (£171m) to all vineyards to destroy their wine and €57m to those in Bordeaux to clear 9,500 hectares of vines. The agriculture ministry also announced at the start of February an €80m (£68m) emergency fund to help winegrowers.
Unlike in the 2000s, recipients are prevented from replanting vines. While that’s sensible, said Ms Couldert, the compensation has gone down from €10,000 per hectare to €6,000.
Many winemakers say the government doesn’t realise that growing a new crop without prior experience is not easy or proven to work. Nor is it attractive, they say, to leave their land idle for 20 years as another option for funding.
Ms Coudert says she will uproot 10 hectares on her estate and plant a mixture of trees and another crop but is undecided on which.
Such sentiment was echoed by participants of Wine Paris-vinexpo, France’s biggest wine salon that opened in the French capital yesterday.
“The global cake is shrinking, and market share is becoming more and more expensive", said chief organiser Rodolphe Lameyse. Innovation and moving upmarket are the buzz words, but “not everyone has the ability to do one or the other", he told AFP.
It’s not doom and gloom everywhere; Champagne and Burgundy are still doing well and premium and super-premium wines are not in decline, noted Michel Chapoutier, president of the national wine merchants’ union (UMVIN).
“The new generations are drinking beverages straight from the fridge or sparkling wines,” he added. Low or no alcohol wines are also making inroads, with 50 per cent more exhibitors in that category compared to last year.
It is “entry-level wines that have no takers”.
Ms Coudert believes Bordeaux will experience a resurgence as the French turn to better wines. But it might take up to three years to clear the backlog of stock and for the market to adjust.
Many will not be able to wait that long. “As farmers you can suffer, suffer, suffer for a very long time but at some point you will explode,” she said.