The French government is allocating €200m (£171.6m) to destroy surplus wine and support producers.
It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer.
Overproduction and the cost of living crisis are also hitting the industry.
Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume.
that sucks, wine preserves long time after all, they could save it as Canada’s maple syrup or US Cheese reserves
Doesn’t age after bottling
As long as they don’t kill the yeast it will age in the bottle. Distilled drinks don’t age in the bottle because their aging is due to their interactions with the casks they are aged in rather than the yeast cleaning up the byproducts from the initial fermentation.
not all wine has aging potential.
Y’know, if you’re going to spend the money anyways, just subsidize the sellers for the season and let them cut costs to the point that demand tips up. That way they’ll make some money themselves and learn for the next season where the price point is.
All paying to destroy it in order to keep prices up does is… keep it expensive above what the market will bear and cost the taxpayers while making them thirsty and sad
I’d love to know how much more demand they could have created by spending that money giving away the wine at a big event where a single sommelier teaches wine appreciation to the masses. Create future customers instead of trying to manipulate markets, I say. Especially when you’re selling something addictive.
Damn. I’m much more of a craft beer person, but this is sad. Is just marking it down not an option?
Edit: Oh, never mind. They want to stop prices collapsing. Yeah, sounds like France. Forever bailing out their farmers 🙄
To avoid price collapse and still sell it they could create a generic label to bottle it under and export it. They could probably sell it near the original price in the US with a good marketing campaign.
Like Yellowtail, probably will even be better quality
Australia has so called “clean skin” wines. Plain bottles with only the region and grape type.
Large volumes of surplus wine gets sold like this so the big brands can manage their brand value.
It’s pot luck what you get, but sometimes it’s gold and it’s nearly always half decent.
You know what would drive demand up ? Cheap wine.
The world already has Two Buck Chuck. How much cheaper do you want?
To be fair, I can get a bottle of D.O.C.G. Prosecco from Costco for $7, and most people consider it to be fairly good prosecco
A few months ago didn’t the country have riots about how the government tried to raise the retirement age? Shows where the priorities are
The grapes of wrath aren’t usually so literal.
They very much were. The book is about people moving to harvest grapes in California
So that means the demand for wine destroyers increased? Where can I apply?
I volunteer as tribute to take a bite of of this deplorable situation
That’s a bummer, but I do appreciate how France supports it’s artisanal culture and producers. It’s nice being able to have a decent glass of wine at just about any brasserie or cafe in Paris for under 10 euro. In the US it is like 12 bucks a glass for some pretty mediocre wine.
I was gonna guess you’re American even before reading your last sentence, because €10 for a glass of wine is outrageous by European standards. Hehe.
I’m in Eastern Europe right now, and I typically get a half-liter of very good local wine for less than €5.
You can buy very decent wine for less than 3€/bottle in any Portuguese supermarket 😅
I wasn’t gonna mention supermarket prices… The poor Americans have it rough enough already. 😁
The price/quality ratio of wine in French supermarkets is absolutely crazy. You can walk in to a shabby corner store and get an absolutely decent Bordeaux for pocket change.
Douro still wine is under rated. I love ports, but was so surprised by the reds. Unfortunately rich American and European retirees are going to ruin Portugal
The retirees don’t last so long (sorry), but overtourism is indeed a problem. Finding the right balance is the secret but clearly our politicians are not aiming for that… but in fairness, tourism was fantastic for many years to promote Porto’s renewal. But now it’s time to put a break on it but no one is interested in that :/
As an American, I am seething
French here
None of this money will ever end in anything artisanal
This is for industrial wine and big lands owners that fund mains politicals parties
Then they will have another round of public money because of bad weather, then another because ebil chileans do better and cheaper whine then another because of so much money we have to salary accountants to put all of this in tax havens
Those scams are running since decades
Aaaand another example of a whole industry destroyed by ignorance, anachronisms and greed. Good. What’s next? Electric cars? Furniture?
Ads please
Crazy they couldn’t just export it. Bunch of countries love wine
Such a shame for the wine that so much must be spent to destroy it.
Maybe they should stop making so much if they are going to destroy it.
“A cocktail of problems”
Heheh.
