• A collective of winegrowers will demonstrate on Tuesday morning in the streets of Bordeaux.

  • The Bordeaux vineyard produces more wine than it can sell, and in many operations, the cellars are full.

  • The winegrowers are appealing to the State to subsidize a vast plan to uproot the vines.

The tractors are expected Tuesday in Bordeaux around 8 am.

Grouped together on the Quai de la Souys on the right bank, they will reach the Place des Quinconces by taking the Saint-Jean bridge, and will join the procession which will demonstrate from 9:30 a.m.

The collective of Bordeaux winegrowers will then march through the streets of the city, to go to the prefecture around 1:30 p.m.

Between overproduction and falling prices, Bordeaux, the largest AOC vineyard in France with its 110,000 cultivated hectares, 85% of which are red, is in the doldrums.

To sum up, between the fall in wine consumption in France (-15% for three years, -10% expected for 2023), and the collapse of the Chinese market (the volume exported has decreased by two), the Bordeaux vineyard produces more wine than he can sell, and in many estates the cellars are full and the treasuries dry.

The (small) winegrowers are appealing to the State to subsidize a vast plan to uproot the vines.

Suspension of bulk wine quotations

“During the years 1980-1990, we overplanted and today we find ourselves with a million hectoliters of excess stock”, summarizes Didier Cousiney, head of the collective organizer of the event.

“We no longer sell anything and there are no longer any trading prices.

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At the beginning of November, the CIVB, the local interprofessional organization, suspended the quotation of wines sold in bulk – around 40% of production – on the grounds that the prices displayed would no longer be representative and would destabilize the entire market.

For the red Bordeaux appellation, the largest in volume, the 900-litre barrel has fallen to around 600 euros, or a few tens of cents per liter, when it would take double to cover current costs, say the winegrowers.

The collective wants to uproot at least 15,000 hectares, the CIV speaks of 10,000

The collective wants to uproot "at least 15,000 hectares" for a premium of 10,000 euros per hectare, or 150 million euros in total.

To allow old people to retire “decently” – in Bordeaux, one out of two winegrowers is approaching 60 – and young people to settle in a “rebalanced” market, analyzes Didier Cousiney.



The CIVB, which speaks rather of 10,000 hectares, also considers “absolutely necessary to reduce the airfoil”.

“We have around 10% of the sector, in terms of surface area, production or farms, which is going very badly and this weighs on the whole”, considers the president of the interprofession Allan Sichel.

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