New World Order has French wine over a barrel
September 2, 2004 - The Times-Picayune
LUC-SUR-ORBIEU, FRANCE—They say it is France’s worst wine crisis in 35 years. In Bordeaux, they claim it is the worst in 150 years. And while the French may be notorious complainers, the world’s master winemakers have reason to grouse.
Wine consumption in France is losing out to a growing taste for beer and a newfound responsibility behind the wheel. The rest of the world’s winemakers are catching up to and surpassing French standards. Government legislation and decades-old self-imposed regional quality standards have put many French winemakers at a competitive disadvantage.
Agriculture minister Hervé Gaymard met recently with winegrowers to discuss options to revive the struggling industry. The resulting proposals are things many French wine snobs would call heretical.
Those changes include: relaxing labeling restrictions, rethinking regional naming standards (known as the “appellation d’origine controlée” or AOC), allowing wood chips for flavoring, and a 50 percent increase in spending on wine marketing abroad.
More simple presentation
Gaymard said he hoped to get changes made “to best take advantage of the upcoming (late summer/early fall) harvest,” in hopes that some of the actions will “clarify and simplify the presentation of what France has to offer on the world market.”
Just as globalization has seen U.S. factory jobs move overseas and the price of a phone call from Tokyo to Topeka fall to pennies per minute, French winemakers are confronting the realities of a changing world like never before.
One of their biggest problems has been branding on the world market against what the French call “New World” wines from America, Chile and Australia, among other places.
Gone is the perception that only a French wine can be a fine wine.
Instead, global tendencies have shifted toward marketing grape varieties such as chardonnay or merlot, which can be grown worldwide. These are known as varietal wines, and many casual drinkers may not know the difference between a French merlot and one from Australia. Others don’t care.
Languedoc-Roussillon
In the Languedoc-Roussillon, the southern winemaking region used as a model for parts of the government plan because it is one of the few regions where varietal production thrives, one winemaker spoke out.
Michel de Braquilanges, a seventh-generation wine producer, creates a range of wine at Chateau Moujan, ranging from the tongue-twisting AOC Coteaux du Languedoc-La Clape to a trendier series of reds and whites called “Up Side Down.”
Asked if this really is the worst crisis in 35 years, he doesn’t hesitate: “Without a doubt. There’s just not as much market for us as there was before.”
Indeed, 2003 was the year the “New World” wines collectively dethroned France in terms of bottles exported. On top of that, the French themselves now consume less than half as much wine as they did 35 years ago.
“On the world market, it’s hard for a little producer like me because our prices can only go so low,” Braquilanges says, “so we end up sitting on our wine.”