wine is cheap and nobody is buying it, so lets RAISE the price!!! yeah that's the ticket...
Posted on 06/17/2007 1:03:17 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
A shadowy group in France has issued the French government with an unusual ultimatum: raise the price of wine or blood will flow.
The group's name is the Crav, which stands for nothing more threatening than the Union for Viticultural Action in the Languedoc region in the south.
The Crav's deadline to the government runs out this weekend, which marks exactly 100 years since wine-makers in the region led their last revolt.
That ended with the French army shooting dead six demonstrators.
No wine-maker will publicly admit to being part of Crav but many sympathise with their demands, if not with their methods.
Driven to despair
Trimming the vines in the 17 hectares of vineyard which used to support his family, wine-grower Francois Thiebaud is in despair because of plummeting wine prices.
He says that he and many other wine-makers in this region are now fighting for survival:
"We're working at a loss," he tells me.
"We've lost between 40 and 50% of our income because of falling prices and the big cut taken by the middle-men.
"I can only afford to carry on working in the vineyards because my wife has another job.
"And some wine-makers have to claim social security benefits, because they earn so little that they can't feed their families.
"Some have even killed themselves because they couldn't feed their families on the money they earn."
Such frustration has now boiled over into the threats of violence by the Crav, made in a video message sent to France's new President, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Shots fired
In the video - shot in a secret location late at night - seven wine-makers, their faces hidden by black balaclavas, read out the spine-chilling warning that "blood will flow" if Nicolas Sarkozy does not act fast to raise the price of wine.
The group has proved that it is prepared to use violence to achieve its aims.
Already, several local supermarkets selling foreign wines have been attacked with small explosive devices, with others graffitied with the Crav's initials.
The group has also shot at and hijacked at least one lorry containing wine from abroad - and the fear is that the attacks could escalate unless the government responds to the group's demands, which it so far has not.
Jean-Francois Picquemal runs one of the supermarkets that was graffitied, even though he says it only sells wine from the area.
"There've been similar attacks throughout the region, and this was one of the nicer ones," he says.
"I think the wine-makers are upset with the middle-men who don't pay them enough for their wine.
"But at least this was only graffiti - it wasn't too bad. I think all this might get worse.
"I know a lot of wine makers, I'm from this region, and it's a very difficult situation for them."
The new 'Resistance'
France 3 television journalist Emilien Jubineau was taken in the darkest hours of the night to a remote location to witness the Crav's threatening video message being made.
He believes the group is in deadly earnest.
"It's not that they're necessarily dangerous people but these wine makers are extremely angry - they're desperate," he believes.
"The Crav may have done things that people might condemn but they've been very careful not to injure anyone so far.
"Their attacks have sent a very strong signal: what they want is for the government to talk to them about a real solution."
Sympathy with the cause
The solution Brussels has put forward is for producers to grub up 200,000 hectares of wine - much of it in the Languedoc - because the region is producing much more wine than it can sell in a fiercely competitive global market.
But the Crav say they will fight that idea every step of the way - just as the French Resistance in the south once fought the Nazis.
And even wine-makers not involved with the group say they share many of its frustrations, even if they do not agree with the threat of violence.
Jean-Marc Ribet of Chateau de la Vernede, which produces high-quality wine mainly for the export market, says supermarkets and restaurants are making huge profits at wine-producers' expense, often buying wine at one euro (£0.67; $1.33) a litre and selling it on for 15 euros a litre.
"Normally, the Crav would not exist if people were being heard, but wine-makers in the region are not being heard so they feel they have to speak louder so that the government listens."
Vendors who make terroristic threats because the government won’t coerce neighbors to pay more for their product deserve to be treated like the criminals they are.
“That ended with the French army shooting dead six demonstrators.”
Seems fitting if they promote violence against folks for either not paying higher prices for their product or for purchasing or selling wine from other countries.
Maybe Trader Joe could use this to come up with some one-buck Chuck.
That sums it up pretty well.
Here in Arizona, Trader Joe sells some French wine for $2.99 per bottle (Cabernet, not "Red Table Wine"). They have several wines in the range of $2.99-$4.99. I've noticed that since Sarkozy's victory, sales have picked up.
Sounds like a good time to rework the business model. Maybe a Napa-style winery tour bed and breakfast resort kind of thing marketed heavily at well-to-do American urban lefties. It’d cost a bit to get it up and running, but they could charge a premium for it. Either that- or some similarly creative solution- or get out of the business.
Starting a shooting war over it is completely absurd.
I'm sorry for their families, but if no one wants their wine I don't see how you get around that.
What they are fighting against is market demand. Violence is hardly a convincing argument when targeted against the few groups that could actually help you out.
As I hear it, much of this wine is being bought up to convert for other purposes so it won't be a total waste.
I think the problem is truly "too many vineyards producing swill".
So they want to commit terrorist acts for people not drinking their swill? Lovely...
Story from winter, 2007 -
French vintners will boil away millions of litres of Beaujolais wine into fuel additives, disinfectants and cleaning products. The reason? There’s a glut of wine on the European market.
French wine makers blame the overproduction on overseas competition and less wine drinkers.
The socialists in the European Union are paying vintners to destroy their wine stock, turn it into alcohol or rip out vineyards.
Philippe Terrollion, director of the Beaujolais Distillery in central-eastern France, sent out a fleet of lorries to pick up an expected 8.5 million litres of unbottled, unsold Beaujolais. That’s enough to fill about 125 swimming pools.
Wine consumers around the globe are reaching for wines produced in the New World, such as wine produced in Chile, Australia and the United States.
One winemaker blamed a pernicious arrogance among the French.
“In France, we used to think we were the biggest and best and no-one could touch us,” said Louis-Fabrice Latour, who heads the Louis Latour label in Burgundy.
“It’s clear we can’t go on like this,” said Terrollion.
French wine is great, but after they dissed us in 03, I stopped buying French and went to Australian.
The bulk of the unsold wine falls pretty much in the later category. Most Beaujolias, for example, is pretty thin and mediocre stuff which as long been overpriced because of (1) the novelty value (heaviliy promoted) of Nouveau Beaujolias, (2) the 9 classified growths of Beaujolais which can sometimes be decent, and (3) lack of light, fresh red alternatives as simple burgundies (pinot noir) became expensive (and pinot noir wines made elsewhere were neither common nor particularly successful). Now, as tastes have changed, people are less satisfied with gamay-based wines, and the alternatives at more attractive prices from South American and Australia, as well as the increase in the availablity of inexpensive (if pretty tasteless) simple pinot noir based wines from the Pacific Northwest and California.
It's curious, but over the past 5 years or so, I have consistently found good French wine to be a better value for money than similar wines in California (though I am a 5th generation Californian whose family has been in wine in California since the late 19th century).
Influx of Muslims? I'm just asking.
As an Aussie I may be biased but our wines are pretty good. What I'd like to try is some Texan red wines. Any suggestions?
Socialism at its finest is the cause.
They want the government to fix their failure to be good businessmen.
wine is cheap and nobody is buying it, so lets RAISE the price!!! yeah that's the ticket...
I have tried wines from all over the world and you are correct. The Australian wines I've had so far are very consistent bottle to bottle. I have tried several types, Chardonnay, Shiraz, Cabs.... I am going to try a Yalumba muscat next week.
LEt them make alcohol and sell it for fuel.
Welcome to the free market. However, Sarkozy’s reforms may make French products more competitive.
Whisky Rebellion? Okay, French political culture has shown, that violence works. If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it. France subsidizes violent politics, so why wouldn’t the wine-growers turn to the French State to extort from their fellow citizens?
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