• Hundreds of Girondin winegrowers demonstrated this Tuesday in Bordeaux to demand an award-winning uprooting measure, up to 10,000 euros per hectare.

  • This measure would allow the profession to face a crisis of overproduction, coupled with difficulties in the transmission of businesses.

  • Thierry Faure, 57, explains that he would like to uproot 10% of his vineyard to regain profitability before he retires.

Wine-growing tractors invaded the streets of Bordeaux very early on Tuesday morning.

Unaccustomed to demonstrating, several hundred winegrowers gathered around a fire on Place des Quinconces, before the planned departure to join the prefecture.

Their message: the urgency of an award-winning uprooting when many cannot find buyers and find themselves in debt, unable to live while the barrel of Bordeaux (900 liters) in bulk sells for between 600 and 700 euros.

By tearing up 10% of the Bordeaux vineyard, the interprofession hopes to put an end to a crisis linked to overproduction, in a context of falling consumption of red wine.

At 57, Thierry Faure did not hesitate to hit the road at the wheel of his agricultural machine from Targon, in Entre-Deux-Mers, to Bordeaux to make his distress heard.

He cultivates 50 hectares of red and his wines are exported by merchants who buy it in bulk.

In Entre-Deux-Mers, in addition to the appellation of the same name, we find mostly AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur.

“Chronic overproduction”

"It's been 30 years this year since I took over the farm from my parents, who held it from their parents," he says.

Born into a family of four, he took up the torch after much effort.

“I bought the property from my brothers and sisters, paid a rent to my parents, he explains.

I also had to make myself a house, create a cellar and renew the vineyard because of the change in the specifications for the AOC Bordeaux Supérieur.

At the time, winegrowers were encouraged to uproot their vines in order to replant them, increasing the densities.

“It pushed us into chronic overproduction,” he now believes, with hindsight.

At that time, the wine is flowing well and the sector has probably had eyes bigger than the throat of consumers.

“We brought in a lot, they made it easier for us to expand, there are farms that cover 500 hectares,” continues the winemaker.

About 20 years ago the appellation doubled in size.

“We wanted to produce too much and today we are asking the State for help because we bring in a lot of money: 400 million euros thanks to VAT each year.

There, we ask 150 million euros (10,000 euros per hectare uprooted) to clean up and that our descendants can continue viticulture.

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“There are going to be tragedies”

For those “bulky” winegrowers who cannot find buyers when they are aged 65 to 70 and cannot even claim a pension of 1,000 euros per month, the award-winning uprooting would be really necessary, from 2023. “ Otherwise there will be tragedies, there are already suicides, attempted suicides, warns Thierry Faure.

We always talk about the great vintages but the bulk of the troupe is us”.



He tried to change his mode of marketing by turning to the bottle but in vain.

“You have to sell off to sell,” he sighs.

For him, award-winning uprooting is the only way to clean up the market and restore value to the products: "For four to five years, we have had frost, hail and drought, and we are still in overproduction, realize!

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He is the father of two daughters who are not interested in taking over his estate.

Hard to blame them when you see the situation: cellars full of a wine that no longer has value.

If bonuses are allocated, Thierry Faure intends to tear up his least qualitative plots and the most difficult to cultivate without pesticides.

“I hope to uproot 10% of my vines to get out of debt,” he says.

Tired by thirty years in the ranks, he wants to retire in 2025. If he does not find a buyer, he could also snatch everything.

“I have one of my daughters who goes horse riding, we will put horses.

Around his farm, 40 hectares have already been abandoned.

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Company

Bordeaux: In crisis, winegrowers will demonstrate to demand a plan to uproot the vines

  • Bordeaux

  • Gironde

  • Aquitaine

  • Wine

  • Agriculture

  • Viticulture

  • Winegrowers

  • Debt