Bordeaux Vineyards Facing Crisis: Winemakers Forced to Destroy Grapes

• Frank Renout

  French journalist

In the region around Bordeaux these days the vineyards are literally being cut to the ground. Grapes are pulled out of the ground and destroyed by diggers day after day. The reason: the vines can no longer keep their heads above water.

In total, around 1,200 wine growers around Bordeaux have signed up to remove their grapes with a subsidy. This concerns 8,000 hectares of vineyards that are disappearing. An unknown number of farmers have started to rot without subsidy. It is estimated that around 10 percent of the total number of vineyards in the region will disappear.

It creates a strange image. Bordeaux used to be one of the most prestigious wine regions in the world. Now in many places there is only a bare landscape to be seen, with plots of land plowed and grapes plucked from the vines thrown into great heaps. “Then we set them on fire. That’s the cheapest way to get rid of them,” said winemaker Jean Renaud (55).

Renaud is one of hundreds of winemakers who have decided to reorganize. “In 2018 I had 84 hectares of vineyards. During corona I already got rid of half, and there were still 40 hectares left. And now almost half of them are split up. There is no other choice there, the problems are too great.”

Renaud points out that wine consumption is decreasing. The French have started drinking more than 30 percent less wine in ten years. And there are declines elsewhere too. “I sell 80 percent of my wine abroad, mainly to China. But since 2018, wine imports from China have fallen. I haven’t lost any customers, but they are buying much less. boxes of wine and now just one box.”

There are more problems for French wine growers. Partly due to reduced consumption, bottle prices of wine have fallen significantly and so has the income of the wine grower. Climate change is causing poor harvests. For example, there is frost in the spring and severe drought in the summer. And last year, wine growers near Bordeaux also struggled with a devastating plant disease, downy mildew, damage.

Large vineyards with high prices and lots of cash in hand can take a hit. But the smaller wine producers with low prices and small margins are now under pressure.

The problems are not only in Bordeaux. Recently, two of the largest interest groups made an urgent appeal in the daily newspaper Le Monde. France makes too much wine, they say.

“There are 750,000 hectares of vineyards in France and that’s 100,000 hectares too many,” says Samuel Montgermont of Vin & Société, the federation of France’s national wine groups. The world.

“We urgently need to make less wine and only make the wine we can sell,” said Bernard Farges of the CNIV, the national organization of wine sellers.

Winemaker Jean Renaud walks among the grapes and watches as a digger goes into the ground, pulls out the plant and throws it aside. And then the next plant, and the next. The entire site is being cleaned.

“When I look at it, it brings tears to my eyes,” he says. “It feels like your house is going up in flames, like you’re losing everything. But there’s no other way.”

He will use the subsidies to chip up to eliminate his deficits and get his company back in financial order. “And then I try to start anew with my vineyard, with the grapes that are left and bring the most money. “

Is it optimistic? “I still have a few years until I retire. We’ll see.”