Reims (AFP)

Winegrowers and champagne trading houses are torn apart over the question of the marketable yield of the next harvest, a historic disagreement revealing interests made divergent by the Covid-19 crisis.

"The winegrowers want 8,500 kilos per hectare and the houses between 6,000 and 7,000 kilos", summarizes Bernard Beaulieu, winegrower in Mutigny (Marne).

“This lack of agreement one month before the harvest has never happened since after World War II,” underlines the former secretary general of CGT-Champagne.

Grouped under the banner of the Union of Champagne Houses (UMC), the wine merchant buys 80% of its grape supply from the Champagne winegrowers.

But the houses want much less grapes than in 2019 (10,200 kg / ha) because they are facing two major difficulties weighing on the cash flows of often indebted companies: the plunge in sales linked to the Covid epidemic -19 and over-storage.

The sales decline for 2020 is thus estimated by the merchants at 100 million bottles, i.e. 1.7 billion euros less turnover (five billion euros in 2019).

In addition, there are the costs linked to the over-storage of some 400 million bottles, more than a year of sales, out of a global stock exceeding one billion bottles.

The winegrowers, for their part, do not want to go down to less than 8,500 kg / ha, especially since, according to Bernard Beaulieu, the 2020 harvest, which should start around August 20, promises to be "very qualitative on vines that can produce up to at 16,000 kg / ha ".

"The General Union of Winegrowers (SGV) considers that the objective of the trade aims above all to lighten part of its stocks", regrets in a press release its president Maxime Toubard.

"The vineyard defends a level of yield that makes it possible to cover the 2020 shipments and ensure the sustainability of the farms", he defends with all the more vigor that the SGV has still not succeeded in convincing the government to grant the sector wider social security tax exemptions.

- "the end of wine trade unionism" -

"9,000 kilos per hectare is the threshold below which we must not pass", adds Yves Couvreur, president of the Independent Winegrowers of Champagne, which brings together around 400 winegrowers who produce their brand.

"Let's be smart and innovate" he says.

He proposes to "put an end to the two or three years of crisis" with the single yield for all winegrowers.

"The breaking thresholds are not the same for those who sell their grapes and those who make a living from their brand," who have additional costs, he explains.

Yves Couvreur, like other winegrowers, is also not hostile to the idea of ​​changing the legal period of aging in the cellar from 15 months to 18 or even 24 months against trading.

"Any proposal not to burden the market is good" he believes.

At the Union des Maisons de Champagne, it's radio silence. "No comment under negotiation!" Managing Director David Chatillon soberly replied to AFP, postponing all communication to the decisive date of August 18, when the Champagne Committee, bringing together winegrowers and merchants, will meet.

"If an agreement is not found, then it will be up to the INAO (National Institute of Designations of Origin) to fix this yield. And there, it is the poker stroke on one side or the other "Bernard Beaulieu fears.

"For me, this is the end of winegrower unionism. We are in bad shape!" prophesies the winegrower of Mutigny who sees spreading over the Champagne vineyards and its some 4,000 winegrowers the shadow of the great operators of the trade.

© 2020 AFP