For many wine drinkers, Bordeaux is the red wine par excellence, winemakers in the western French region have now demonstrated for set-aside premiums as they can no longer get rid of their wine. Around 1,000 winegrowers took part in a protest march in Bordeaux on Tuesday with their tractors, broadcaster France 3 reported. They demanded a social plan for winegrowing in the region and a premium of 10,000 euros per hectare if they uproot the vines for something else to grow There is overproduction, wine consumption in France has fallen and prices have fallen.

The winegrowers are demanding that 15,000 of the 110,000 hectares of cultivated land be set aside in France's largest protected-of-origin wine-growing region, with government support. "We have a million hectoliters too much, the supply no longer meets the demand," said the spokesman for the protesting winegrowers, Didier Cousiney, the broadcaster. The winegrowers are faced with falling sales and a deteriorating reputation because their wines are considered too expensive or not environmentally friendly enough. Only the top wines are exempt from the problems, which also include increasing production costs.

A 900-litre barrel of wine today sells for around €600, "or not at all because nobody wants it," while "it takes around €1,200 to cover production costs," Cousiney said. The growing area around Bordeaux is not the only one affected. "The Languedoc and Bouches du Rhône regions have also sounded the alarm."

Report France 3 Report Sud Ouest Report Vitisphere