French government to turn wine surplus into industrial alcohol

France plans to spend millions of euros to turn its surplus wine into industrial alcohol for pharmaceutical and cosmetic use in an effort to deal with overproduction, the agriculture ministry said this week.

Wine aging in a cellar in the south of France. © Agnieszka Kumor / RFI

The world's second-largest wine producer after Italy, France has long been known as a nation of wine aficionados.

But growers in the southwest region of Bordeaux say overproduction and a drop in domestic consumption of their more affordable brands have filled up their cellars and left them with nowhere to store the fruits of their next harvest.

The agriculture ministry said on Monday that it would spend up to €160 million on distilling the tipple into industrial alcohol to use up some of the backlog.

In Bordeaux, winemaker Didier Cousiney said the amount proposed was only enough to help each small business for just a couple of months when spread across the industry nationwide.

We have "24 months' worth of backlog in our cellars", he told French news agency AFP.

Grubbing up the land

Producers in the Bordeaux region want compensation in exchange for uprooting part of their vineyards, a practice known as "grubbing up" the land.

This would help reduce production in the long term, and allow wine growers to repurpose the land for other activities.

Cousiney and fellow producers estimate that at least 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of vineyards -- an area equivalent to 21,000 football pitches -- need to be grubbed up across the region to make a difference.

They are requesting compensation of 10,000 euros per hectare.

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The government last sponsored distillation in 2020, after the worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns caused restaurants and bars to close, and French wine exports to drop.

Around half a million people are estimated to work in the wine industry in France, according to the National Interprofessional Wine Commission.

If nothing is done, "we fear between 100,000 and 150,000 jobs will be threatened in the coming decade", the commission's head Bernard Farges warned in December.

Average consumption down

Red wine sales in French supermarkets dropped 15 percent last year, according to the country's General Association for Wine Production.

White and rosé wines were less affected, registering declines of around three and four percent.Jérôme Despey, a winegrower and secretary general of the FNSEA agriculture union, said this reflected a broader trend.

French people used to drink 130 litres of wine each year 70 years ago, he said, but today that has dropped to around 40 litres.

(with AFP)