Buvez Français!

This has been the week of the Chancellor's autumn statement, eagerly awaited by drinkers to see whether the floated second increase in alcohol duty within a matter of months would be announced - in the end, fortunately not.  But there has been another money-related news story in the wine world from across the Channel that has also drawn my attention this week.  I doubt we'll see much coverage of it in the British media but it reflects historical and more recent challenges of wine production in the Languedoc region of France and the pressing choices that winemakers there now have to make.

The Languedoc in SW France encompasses the large Mediterranean coastal area running west from the mouth of the river Rhòne to the Spanish border.  Montpellier, Bézier's, Narbonne and Perpignan are the main urban centres and viticulture provides significant employment in the surrounding areas and makes an important contribution to the regional economy.  From my perspective as a consumer, wines from here are varied, well-made, and great value for money.  Even taking into account recent price hikes it is not difficult to find decent bottles of Minervois, Corbières, Saint-Chinian, Pic Saint Lou for everyday drinking for £10 or less in UK supermarkets.  And just look at the popularity of Picpoul de Pinet as a refreshing single grape variety white wine since gaining appellation d'origine controllée (AOC) status ten years ago in 2013.  However, the future is not quite so rosy as it might seem and all is not well with the winemakers in southwest France.  In order to appreciate their current predicament first we need to take a look back at trends in wine production there over the past 150 years.

The people in the Languedoc have been growing grapes to turn into wine since ancient times, but in recent times their prospects of successful harvests were delivered an almost terminal blow by the scourge of phylloxera, the microscopic root-eating aphid from America that decimated vines in Europe in the 1870s.  Within a decade wine production in France fell by about 70% and there was a national emergency to guarantee the vast quantities of what we would now regard as rough red wine to sustain the population.  The shortfall was addressed by encouraging ex-pats and entrepreneurs to plant vineyards in France's north African colonies, e.g. present-day Algeria where, although there was a tradition of viticulture, the Muslim faith of the local population prohibited consumption of alcohol.  By the end of the 19th century the solution of grafting French vines onto American rootstock had addressed the phylloxera problem and production on the mainland had largely recovered.  In fact the issue now was a glut of wine and a saturated market through a combination of continued imports from North Africa and restored production at home.  In the early years of the 20th century the 'languedociens' winemakers were complaining that they could only sell their wine, if at all, at ridiculously low prices and that they were increasingly being mugged off by unscrupulous traders buying up their cheap wine, doctoring it in various ways, and selling it on as better quality counterfeits.  Unsurprisingly, landowners, managers and laborious in the wine industry across the region were all feeling the pain and were determined to raise their case with the national government.  With support from political radicals and regional separatists protests were staged throughout the area and the so-called 'Révolte du Midi' culminated in violent riots in Montpellier in June 1907.  Reports at the time claim that up to 800,000 people were protesting in the centre of the city.  The standoff with the French government did lead to minor concessions but ultimately the protest petered out.

The First World War moved the focus elsewhere and for a large part of the 20th century the vineyards of the Languedoc continued to sustain the French nation with vast quantities of indifferent red wine for home consumption.  With wine drinking becoming an increasingly global phenomenon in the past 50 years French producers have competed well in developing markets and the value of exports doubled from €5.49 billion in 2000 to €11.1 billion in 2021.  This success in a worldwide economy has of course to some extent been offset by the quantity and quality of imports from the New World.  However, the most serious threat to the industry is undoubtedly the reduction in wine consumption.  Here the statistics for France are startling.  In 1960 consumption was assessed at approx. 120 litres per capita.  50 years later in 2010 it was 46.7 litres per capita, and in 2023 it's just 24.2 litres per capita.  Like in many other countries the French are drinking substantially less wine and are on track to have reduced consumption by 50% in 15 years by 2025.

It is no surprise then that producers in an area such as the Languedoc where significant quantities of decent yet not exceptional wine is produced are getting increasingly anxious.  Indeed, I have had no difficulty finding reports of regional protests on the threats to their livelihoods in 2005, 2008 and 2017.  Just last month (October 2023) militant winemakers hijacked lorries bringing wine into France from Spain and emptied their loads across the autoroute in order to highlight their demand for a €2 million rescue package to keep their industry afloat.  This has been followed today (Saturday 25 November) by a major demonstration though the streets of Narbonne from around 5000 people representing vineyard owners, cooperatives and workers.  They are urgently demanding support from the French government to address problems brought about by declining consumption, inflation, cheap imports from Spain and Italy, overproduction, and climate change.  Their rhetoric consciously references back to historical events in Languedoc in 1907.   

Protestors in Narbonne, 25 November 2023

In the short term national governments in Europe can take measures to mitigate overproduction by temporarily funding distillation of excess wine into alcohol for the pharmaceutical and food industries.  The government in France announced a €160 million programme along these lines in February this year.  However, in a shrinking market the long-term solution is to reduce production in line with demand and for this winemakers need an incentive.  The French government is starting to fund schemes to encourage land owners in wine-dependent areas to diversify their crops and a €65 million scheme has just opened this month for growers in Bordeaux to grub up vineyards.  But perhaps a more sustainable solution is to encourage winemakers to focus more on quality over quantity.  Funding producers to modernise and giving them more support to experiment with grape varieties more suited to the changing climate stands a good chance of leading to a better product.  Better wines lead to higher prices for the producer and greater pleasure for the consumer.  It's a win-win situation.  I will be watching future developments with interest.