Tariffs, Brexit cloud Beaujolais season
French wine region feeling the squeeze amid annual celebration
CHATILLON, FRANCE— Celebration is the mot du jour in France’s Beaujolais region on the third Thursday of November, when winemakers and sellers uncork the season’s Beaujolais Nouveau with feasting and fanfare.
But considerable uncertainty is clouding this year’s celebration of the idiosyncratic wine, known for its youth rather than its age, as the French wine industry finds itself increasingly squeezed by unfavourable geopolitics and turbulent markets.
New U.S. tariffs are threatening profits. Brexit looms. Unrest in Hong Kong has shaken that lucrative market. And China is turning to Chilean and Argentine wines instead.
“Today, world commerce is complicated, especially in a period where the competition is strong,” Dominique Piron, president of the Beaujolais winemakers’ association, told The Associated Press.
Beaujolais, a region spanning 55 kilometres, north of Lyon, has spent decades marketing its wines globally. It now exports to more than 110 countries, according to statistics from Vinescence, a wine production company working with 310 winemakers in the area.
Beaujolais Nouveau has seen remarkable success. Half of the wine is exported, notably to Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Some connoisseurs scoff at the young, inexpensive variety, a newcomer amid renowned wines in Burgundy to the north and in Beaujolais itself.
Beaujolais Nouveau producers and defenders, however, say their wine buoys the regional economy and constitutes a significant material and cultural export for France. During the first eight months of 2019, it led French wine regions in exports, according to Piron.
Winemaker Franck Duboeuf will kick off this year’s season in Houston, courting buyers in a country whose government just slapped tariffs on his products.
The Trump administration imposed a 25 per cent import tax on most French still wines last month as part of a trade spat with the European Union over illegal subsidies for the aircraft giant Airbus.
On top of the tariffs, uncertainty lingers around trade with the United Kingdom, whose Dec. 12 election will determine the future of Brexit. When and how Brexit takes shape could impact the wine trade.
While big producers have bought up many smaller operations in the region, the Chasselay family, which has run vineyards north of Châtillon since the 15th century, seeks to buck that trend.
Though they exported 6,000 of the 22,500 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau they sold this year, winemaker Claire Chasselay prefers to see her wine on nearby shelves and tables.
“It’s important that you enjoy eating at the restaurants that sell your wine, and that you know the people,” she said.