Thousands of hectares of vineyards are cut down in France due to falling demand for wine

The French Ministry of Agriculture announced the day before that it will pay 200 million euros to winemakers who are forced to destroy unsold wine. At the same time, 9200 hectares of vineyards are planned to be cut down in one of the country's main wine-growing regions, Bordeaux. With these measures, the authorities are trying to mitigate the effects of the crisis in the French wine industry.

Source. The Insider writes about this with reference to experts from the alcohol market.

It is noted that the main reason for the crisis is the overproduction of inexpensive wine "for every day" and the change in the lifestyle of the French.

Unlike other wine-producing countries, France has always been focused more on the domestic market than on exports: 70% of French wines are consumed domestically. Wine is an essential part of French national culture. It was not a drink for parties or holidays, but accompanied every meal. Even children drank wine: parents used to put it in their schoolchildren's food basket. This practice was banned only in 1981.

Of course, the French drank a lot of wine. In 1926, a record of national consumption was recorded – 136 liters of wine per capita per year. Until the early 1980s, this figure was at 100 liters.

To meet the French demand for wine, the country's vineyard area was constantly expanding. However, since then, wine consumption in France has been declining sharply: today it is just under 47 liters per person per year. Although this is second in the world after Portugal, the capacity of the French wine industry is designed for twice as much consumption.

The decline in demand for wine was caused by a number of reasons: from changes in French eating habits to fashion:

1) the traditional way of life has changed. Previously, a French family would sit down to a table with the same wine twice a day, but now many people limit themselves to fast food and do not drink in the middle of the day.

2) one of the trends in recent years is a reduction in meat consumption, and red wine (which has seen the strongest decline in demand) has always been considered a must-have accompaniment to meat dishes in France.

3) young people started drinking less, and gatherings with wine seem very old-fashioned to them. And all recent surveys show that more and more young people are giving up wine in favor of beer and cocktails with strong alcohol. The number of people who do not drink at all is also growing.

The previous volumes of French wine consumption will not be restored. The surplus leads to falling prices while production costs rise, in particular due to higher fuel prices, making the wine business unprofitable for many farms. So some vineyards will have to be cut down.

But the state, realizing the scale of the problem, provides support to its winemakers, the expert notes.

Overproduction of wine is observed not only in France, but also around the world. In five years (from 2016 to 2020), producers have accumulated a surplus of 23.8 million hectoliters of wine that they could not sell. This is almost 10% of total production.