The European Commission announced Thursday that it had approved a campaign to uproot vines to reduce overproduction of wine in France by 120 million euros, citing the effects of the war in Ukraine on the sector.
“The Commission has authorized a French aid scheme worth 120 million euros aimed at supporting wine growers in the context of the war waged by Russia against Ukraine”she said in a press release.
As part of this scheme authorized under the temporary crisis and transition framework for state aid, “aid will take the form of direct subsidies”specifies Brussels.
The scheme aims to support wine growers who need liquidity to partially compensate for losses caused in particular by the war in Ukraine, by allowing them to reduce their production potential. To benefit from it, wine growers will have to commit to permanently uprooting the vineyards concerned.
The war in Ukraine has affected French wine growers due in particular to the shortage of glass bottles manufactured by Ukrainian factories which have closed, increased production costs and disruptions in supply chains.
These elements have been added in certain wine production areas to the growing disenchantment with red wine, to the difficulties of exporting to China and the United States, to Covid-19 and to inflation.
France, currently the world’s leading producer of wine (48 million hectoliters in 2023), is experiencing an imbalance between supply and demand.
For Bordeaux, the first AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) vineyard in France with 103,000 hectares, the European Commission has already validated a grubbing-up plan in November 2023. “sanitary” of 8,000 hectares, with the possibility of an additional 1,500 hectares by next winter.
Officially aimed at fighting against flavescence sore, a disease which threatens abandoned vines, it indirectly makes it possible to reduce production volumes in a vineyard very shaken by the fall in consumption.