INTERVIEW
Recently affected by the episode of extreme frost, Bordeaux winegrowers did not take off. During the spring wine fairs, their wines were sold at cut prices, with bottles sold for less than two euros each. Exceeded, these professionals demonstrated in March in front of the Lidl of Libourne, in Gironde, to denounce the practices of this distributor. “In the supermarkets, the bottle of my wine, I saw it exactly at 1.67 euros. We have the impression of working for nothing! We do not get by anymore”, gets carried away the winemaker Franck Dufils on Sunday on Europe 1.
“People are taking advantage of a situation to put the winegrowers’ heads under water”
The taster of The wine review of France and chronicler of Europe 1 Olivier Poels specifies that “wines at these prices are not wines from the greatest terroirs of Bordeaux”. “Nevertheless, today, we are technically capable of making wines that are clean and drinkable” at these prices, he emphasizes. But these prices still hide a big problem. “This is not the price that winegrowers are aiming for”, confirms Olivier Poels. “The problem is that today you have people, merchants or retailers in mass distribution, who take advantage of a situation to put the winegrowers’ heads under water,” says the specialist.
At the microphone of Europe 1, the purchasing director of Lidl, Michel Biero, says he understands the anger of the winegrowers but recalls that the current situation is the result of an economic phenomenon and that his brand is not the only one to respect this economic logic. evoked. “Bulk Bordeaux, everyone has been selling it at 1.69 euros for months and months. I am willing to raise the price, but are we going to sell as many volumes?” he asks himself. “You should know that we have sold more than 500,000 bottles” over a week, for example, thanks to this price, he continues. “If tomorrow I put the same bottle at 2.99 euros, I am not sure I will sell 500,000 bottles.”
“These volumes must be sold”
“The entire distribution sells (these wines at) this price of 1.69 euros or below two euros,” he adds. While the closure of restaurants because of the Covid-19 has limited the outlets for their production, “the vats of winegrowers who make Bordeaux in bulk are full and these volumes must be sold because the next harvest is coming”, argues Michel Biero. The latter says he is ready to sit around a table with the wine growers and traders to consider solutions.
In the meantime, the winegrowers are suffering. “When we go back three years, we sold on a basis of 1,300 to 1,400 euros per barrel. For two years, prices have collapsed: it is 700 to 800 euros maximum”, testifies Franck Dufils. Winemaker for 31 years, he fears knowing his last vintage because of the poor results of his business. “There are only these solutions left: sell or be seized …”
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