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.
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 🙄
Is just marking it down not an option?
Not when you’re propping up billionaire monopolists.
Lol. True.
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.
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.
cut costs to the point that demand tips up
Price can be a factor in determining what to drink, obviously, but to compare these different products as though they’re interchangeable would be a mistake. There’s no price point at which a Bordeaux becomes a gose, so you have to account for not just the cost in dollars but the cost inasmuch as the consumer would be subbing something they don’t want for something they do. How much cheaper would wine have to be to induce someone who wants a beer to drink it? Personally, if there’s only red wine around I’ll just go to bed sober at any price.
that sucks, wine preserves long time after all, they could save it as Canada’s maple syrup or US Cheese reserves
This is cheap wine which doesn’t age well.
couldn’t they still distill it and sell it as something else?
I mean I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you read the article, or even just the context OP posted just below the headline, you may find something interesting like:
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 would make the use of the word destroying on the title a little clickbaity wouldn’t it? reading the article should be to find additional details, not contradictions
It’s no longer wine. The wine is destroyed. They do not plan to breach the laws of physics, lol. It’s clickbaity but not crazy inaccurate.
First time in the Internet, huh? Well welcome to the party.
Removed by mod
That’s exactly what they’re doing, hence the mention of hand sanitizer and stuff.
They could also turn it into Vodka but then the Slavs would have another temper tantrum.
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.
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
Businesses should be forced to donate unsold food products
I’m not sure I’d consider alcohol a “food product”
Although I 110% agree with your comment.
Tell that to Germany
Hey Germany, you might have a slightly unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
~ A random French
Now what?
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 government is terrified of the agricultural holders union.
So they will do anything to try to keep them happy.
The government is paid by those corporates unions
The mobsters from FNSEA hunt journalists and activists and sometimes local elected officials
They do not go for their buddies they are financing all years in exchange of those publics fundings
The government is terrified of the agricultural holders union.
So they will do anything to try to keep them happy.
It used to be true when farmers represented 10% of the working force. They barely represent 2% now.
Farming unions have lost their power in France.
This is a different issue altogether I believe. Potentially lobbying from major winemakers close to the Elysée
So all I have to do to get millions of euros from the government is produce a bunch of shit that nobody wants?
Paid for by people who produced things that people did want.
That’s how the whole economy works, financed straight off the money printer at the top. Launder a percentage for yourself and burn the rest on a bonfire.
The grapes of wrath aren’t usually so literal.
They very much were. The book is about people moving to harvest grapes in California
I mean, fair enough, and I’ve only seen the film adaptation, but I would expect literal grapes of wrath to ferment into Klingon bloodwine, and I don’t recall that being a plot point.
I’d do it for them for half that!
I volunteer as tribute to take a bite of of this deplorable situation
So that means the demand for wine destroyers increased? Where can I apply?
Aaaand another example of a whole industry destroyed by ignorance, anachronisms and greed. Good. What’s next? Electric cars? Furniture?
Ads please
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.
Even in France you can get an whole bottle of an excellent Bordeaux or Côtes du Rhône Villages for less than €5
If you got charged €10 for a glass you must have a big neon “TOURIST” sign on your head 😂
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 :/
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
As an American, I am seething
Why dont they turn it into vinegar?
They probably do. The article mentions some nonfood products that the destroyed wine can be sold as, but I don’t think there’s much lazier things to do than let it become vinegar.
If you’re thinking of industrial vinegar or cheap white supermarket vinegar then because wine isn’t a good feedstock for that, we have much more efficient processes nowadays. If you’re thinking of high-grade luxury vinegars then because the wine is comparably shit. Also, already wine, not must.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer.
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.
In a bid to cut back on the overproduction, money will also be available for winegrowers to change to other products, such as olives.
In funnelling the money into the industry, the French government aims to stop “prices collapsing… so that wine-makers can find sources of revenue again”, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said.
Despite the financial help - an initial EU fund of €160m which the French government topped up to €200m - the wine industry needs to “look to the future, think about consumer changes … and adapt”, he added.
European Commission data for the year to June shows that wine consumption has fallen 7% in Italy, 10% in Spain, 15% in France, 22% in Germany and 34% in Portugal, while wine production across the bloc - the world’s biggest wine-making area - rose 4%.
The original article contains 211 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 12%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
