Wine industry in France finding itself over a barrel
August 8, 2004 - The Star-Ledger
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 this time.
Wine consumption in the country 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. And government legislation and decades-old self-imposed regional quality standards have put many French winemakers at a competitive disadvantage.
With a looming sense of “it’s now or never” every time a critical new set of numbers comes in, agriculture minister Herve 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 controlee” or AOC - allowing wood chips for flavoring and a 50 percent increase in overall wine marketing spending abroad.
In the tradition-steeped French wine industry, even the budget increase goes against the grain of some, but the closely watched questions remain: “Is this enough?” “Is it the right direction?” and, most importantly, “Will it work?”
For export alone, France produced 339 million gallons of wine in 2002, worth $6.9 billion, and fate of these numbers rests on those answers to the questions above.
After the roundtable, Gaymard said he hoped to get changes made “to best take advantage of the upcoming (late summer/early fall) harvest,” in the hopes that some of the actions will, “clarify and simplify the presentation of what France has to offer on the world market.” THE ‘NEW WORLD’ Just as globalization has seen American factory jobs move overseas and the price of 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.
In addition, people all over the world know of great French regional wines such as those from Bordeaux and Burgundy, whose names remain some of the strongest marketing “brands” in wine, but how many know wines from Corbières or La Clape?
These lesser-known appellations that blanket the country - France is home to a total of 467 - are finding the little brand recognition they have when trying to market beyond the country’s borders has been eclipsed by worldwide varietal success.
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, three winemakers spoke out.
Michel de Braquilanges, a seventh-generation wine producer, creates a range of wine at Château Moujan, ranging from the tongue-twisting AOC Coteaux du Languedoc-La Clape, to a trendier series of reds and whites called “Up Side Down.”
When 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 nearly 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.”
At Domaine Roque-Sestiere in the small town of Luc-sur-Orbieu, Roland Lagarde is lucky that the old and new laws have little effect on his bottom line. He makes affordable, award-winning Corbières wines that are quickly snatched up in France. With no plans to produce varietal wines, he may provide as close to an objective view on what’s happening as possible on French soil.
“People used to buy French wine because it was a given that it was the best, but now if you’re Mr. X, how do you get your name out there? You can’t just call it ‘Mr. X wine’ because it doesn’t work anymore, but if you call it ‘Mr. X Chardonnay,’ it’s instantly known around the world.”
As the world’s best-known wine critic, Robert Parker, put it at a conference in June, “For the average consumer, the AOC (or the regional naming standard) doesn’t mean a thing.”
However, a complicated system of legal snares keeps most French winegrowers from slapping a varietal label on their wine, or even marking which grapes make up their appellation.
Has the idea of name-controlling wines gone so far that it has now backfired? Not necessarily. Appellations are still sprouting up in wine regions all over the world, but those who live by its rules are learning there are bigger things at stake.
“We bow to the market,” Lagarde says.
The market, though, threatens to crush small producers who would try making varietals and sell them outside of France, says Michele Galinier, a now-retired winemaker in Luc-sur-Orbieu who was also a “daughter of, wife of and mother of winemakers.”
“There’s no way small wine producers can fight the big wineries on the varietal front,” she explains. “We can’t even put our varietals in the bottle for the price they sell theirs.”
Brandishing that day’s copy of La Depeche du Midi newspaper, where she’s proud to see her son’s wine, Clos Canos, featured in an article about rosés she thinks the best way out is through the quality of their offerings, not the fact that they could offer chardonnay.
“Maybe old France has been too set in its ways,” concedes Braquilanges. “Do people really know La Clape? Maybe we just haven’t been good at following the world.”
Braquilanges’ son Thibaut, who imports and exports wine for a company called LacrimaVini, agrees that something must be done, but gives a blunt hint at why change is so slow incoming.
“We plant our vines for the next generation,” he said. “If we’re wrong, we’re screwed.”
