Sometimes, it feels like wine news goes on the backburner in Europe while harvest is under way, only for it to come back with a bang as winegrowers start to relax. This week certainly felt that way, with an abundance of stories – primarily from France – which included the news that Beaujolais, Burgundy and Champagne were joining together in a project to protect local vine plant material.
The project, dubbed Qanopée, will begin with the the construction of a conservation greenhouse and vine nursery in Blancs-Coteaux, Champagne. The nursery covers 4500 square meters and has so far drummed up €8.2 million across the three regional bodies as well as a major contribution from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (FEADER).
| Related stories: |
| Winemaker Given Support over Sex Claims |
| Critic Wars: The Producer Strikes Back |
| Spain's Wine Giants Face Court |
Further south, winegrowers in Corsica reported a good, abundant harvest (something almost newsworthy it seems these days), while winegrowers in Faugères announced that they would indeed remain within the Languedoc wine trade body (the CIVL). For a time, it had looked as though the region would follow the suit of Corbières and Fitou (see Big Split in French Wine Region) in leaving the pan-regional organization.
Still in the south, the Sable de Camargue IGP officially became an AOP (appellation) this month but, while this seems like a relatively innocuous move, we are still to hear from the region's potentially disgruntled counterparts in the Terre de Camargue subzone of the Bouches-du-Rhône IGP (for more on this issue, see the "Battle lines drawn in the Rhône delta" story here).
Meanwhile, up in Paris, the team from Romania walked away as the blind wine tasting champions of the world. The competition, organised by French wine magazine La Revue du Vin de France, is an annual international blind wine taste-off, pitting wine tasting delegates from 33 countries from around the world against each other.
This year, Romania finished top with the Netherlands and Denmark coming second and third respectively. The home team from France finished a respectable fourth place. But wait, there's even more:
Riffault threatens wine writer
Still in Paris, the Sébastien Riffault saga (see Winemaker Defamation Case Goes to Appeal) took another sinister turn this week after wine writer Aaron Ayscough reported that the Sancerre-based winegrower had "demanded I take down my June article on his defamation lawsuit – or, he said, he'd send Ukrainian war refugees to break my knees".
Ayscough, whose book on French natural wines (The World of Natural Wine) was published last year, wrote on his notdrinkingpoison blog this week that Riffault had called him up on September 30 to threaten him to take down his article on the Riffault-Perraud case. According to Ayscough, Riffault issued a series of violent threats.
"I told Riffault it sounded like he was threatening me," said Ayscough. "He affirmed this, before insulting me at length, reiterating his threat to send Ukrainian war refugees to inflict bodily harm upon me, and hanging up."
Attempts to reach Riffault for comment have so far been unsuccessful.
Tensions rise in southern France
Less than two weeks on from an arson attack on a bottling line in Sallèles-d'Aude, just outside Narbonne, disgruntled winegrowers in the south of France made headlines again this week when, after blockading a motorway in the region on Thursday, they attacked trucks bearing wine coming into the country from Spain.
The still and video images of the winemakers on the A9 motorway smashing pallets of Freixenet Cava (reports say over 10,000 bottles were destroyed) made it onto numerous news outlets and social media accounts across France. The protesting winegrowers also told journalists this was "day one of the uprising".
"Without a major [government] announcement, the mobilization of winegrowers will strengthen," Pierre Hylari, the regional president of the Young Farmers union, told regional radio France Bleu Roussillon on the same day.
At 9am that morning, winegrowers began blockading the motorway at Le Boulou, the site of the first toll stop after the Franco-Spanish border. Their objectives were clear: stop any truck carrying wine from Spain into France and destroy its contents.
It appears only two trucks were targeted: one, an ISO tank container, whose contents were emptied onto the road and a curtainsider, carrying numerous pallets of cases of Cava bottles, which were hurled onto the tarmac from the truck.
According to French wine news website Vitisphere, neither the Henkell group (Freixenet) nor Carrefour supermarkets (for whom the ISO of wine was destined for bottling at their Johanès Boubée subsidiary in Nîmes) wished to make a comment on the attacks.
"For several weeks," said France Bleu in their report, "the winegrowers in the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Aude have condemned an 'explosive cocktail' of a catastrophic 2023 harvest due to drought, costs which continue to grow with inflation, wine prices that are not following [inflation], all while négociants importing wines are pushing those prices down."
The report added that, according to OIV (International Organisation of Vine and Wine) figures, last year France imported more than 6m hectoliters (600m liters) of wine, all while certain vineyard regions in the country are being hit with a major fall in sales.
"The problem is the price," one septuagenarian winegrower told Le Parisien newspaper. "The Spaniards have minimal costs and they can put all the chemical products they want on their vines while we aren't allowed to do anything [...] so Spanish wine is half the price of French wine. A hectoliter [100 liters] of their wine costs €40, but it is €80 here."
Meanwhile in Spain, numerous official bodies condemned the attacks.
"The wine sector strongly condemns the attacks against Spanish wine in France,” said a press release from the Wines of Spain trade body (OIVE) on Thursday."[...] these attacks are carried out by other winegrowers, perfectly aware of our efforts in the face of a difficult market where we are seeing high production costs, the increase in cost of raw materials and the uncertainty and instability of the markets," added the OIVE.
For its part, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture condemned the actions, which "undermined the free movement of goods within the European Union".
While numerous reports cited the demonstration as "day one of the uprising", the arson attack on the CVS bottling site in Sallèles, a few minutes north of Narbonne, occurred on the night of Wednesday October 5. The attack was accompanied with the letters "CAV" (Comité d'Action Viticole – a direct-action group of angry winegrowers) and "Import Non!" (No Imports!) graffitied on the building's walls.
"I do not condone this type of act but unfortunately it is likely to become part of everyday life, given the current wine situation," Frédéric Rouanet, the president of the Aude winegrowers' union, told La Depeche newspaper.
CAV and the related CRAV, or Comité Régionale d'Action Viticole, have a long history of action in the area with previous attacks, including damage to high-speed railway lines and numerous hijacks of Spanish wine trucks, going back to the early 2000s and beyond. Indeed the region's often violent history goes back to the early 20th Century, when local winegrowers violently demonstrated against fraudulent wine production (wines surreptitiously blended and even watered down by unscrupulous merchants).
This, combined with poor harvests and the growth of imports from abroad, led to the winegrowers' revolt of 1907.
Biodegradable closure launched
Belgian-based closure giant Vinventions, whose operations include the plastic-based cork producer Nomacorc, has announced the release of its first fully biodegradable closure. Produced at the company's Rivesaltes plant in southern France the cork, named Sübr, contains no plastic and is produced from entirely natural products.
"The stoppers are made from cork particles with a biodegradable binder and without polyurethane glue," revealed local news outlet Actu Perpignan.
Although the Sübr has been around, primarily for trials and product testing, for some time (it is similar to the Origine stopper made by agglomerate cork producer Diam which also uses a plant and beeswax-based binding agent to hold the cork particles together), it is understood that production in Rivesaltes is set to get into its stride.
"Vinventions wishes to double its workforce in the Catalan factory," said the local news report. "Around fifteen additional jobs are to be created. Ultimately, 200 million closures will be manufactured at the Rivesaltes factory within three to five years."
Calais couple in €300,000 wine fraud
A couple in northern France have been arrested for fraud and money laundering after they were found to have made €300,00 defrauding local wine retailers. It is understood the couple, based in Marquise, between the port towns of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer on the Channel coast, had spent years replacing barcodes on wine bottles and acquiring expensive bottles of wine for a pittance.
Although the report from local radio station Delta FM did not clarify how the scam led to the major revenues seen by the pair, it is safe to assume the wines were then on-sold to knowing consumers.
The pair came under police surveillance two years ago when suspicions were raised by large sums of money going into the nominally unemployed man's account. His wife also knew about the scheme and the pair reportedly used the ill-gotten gains to finance trips abroad.
"The couple admitted their guilt in police custody," said the radio station. "Their home and accounts were seized. As well as a very large fine the pair are also looking at three years in prison for undeclared work and five years in prison for laundering funds resulting from a crime."
IGP Terres du Midi gets green light
Back to the south of France for this one where the EU has approved the term "Terres du Midi" (broadly translated as "Lands of the South") as a new IGP title.The new IGP, or Protected Geographical Indicator (a pan-European replacement for the Vin de Pays and similar titles) covers red, white and rosé wines made in the departments of the Aude, the Gard, the Hérault and the Pyrénées-Orientales as well as several communes in the Lozère.
