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.
Impossible! The French arrogant?