Basil Howitt mourns the changing landscape around his village in the Languedoc-Roussillon as fields of vines are destroyed to reduce wine production.

Every time I take my constitutional – a breathtakingly beautiful, hard-up-easy-down 5 kilometre circuit from my home in Lansac – the sad plight of our local vignerons is rammed home to me.

The highest point in my walk is called the Col de Caramany, about 450 metres, with Le Roch de Lansac towering above. I gasp in amazement at the views of Canigou (Catalonia’s highest mountain at 2,785 metres), Bugarach (1,230 metres), the southern ridge of the Corbières, and the Mediterranean Sea.

At the Col de Caramany I see Henri’s large steeply sloping field of recently uprooted vines beneath Le Roch. The weeds are already taking over. As I start to descend the newly tarmaced lane (goodness knows why this was done at a cost to the public purse of 28.199,45 euros), I see another huge field on the left, grubbed up a few years ago and now a wilderness. Same story opposite on the right. Then further along I find two fields of my friend Giles, already full of weeds and large piles of uprooted vine roots (souches). By the end of the walk I have passed at least four more fields of grubbed up vines. Never again in late April and May will I be able to glory in so many serried ranks of bright green clusters of vine shoots and young leaves bursting with life and renewal. It was the most beautiful time of the year.

Giles has kindly invited me to help myself to the souches for our outdoor grillades. I shall do so, but I wish it hadn’t come to this and that he was still up there pruning, hoeing, spraying against mildew, cutting back, and finally harvesting with his “colle” (team) of young and sometimes mischievous grape pickers. Every time he was working there as I passed, he came over for a brief chat and, sensing my genuine interest, explained clearly to me exactly what he was doing in the yearly round of tasks. So, still, does another courageous vigneron Thierry. Each time he spots me as I pass his fields of Syrah, Carignan and Mourvèdre, he walks over, shakes my hand, and talks at length. His bare hands, by the way, are tougher than any industrial strength gloves.

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In an effort to cut overproduction of Languedoc-Roussillon wines the EU is proposing to pay vignerons to grub up 200,000 hectares of vineyards and call it a day. The sooner they do it the bigger the premium to invest in “other activities”.

“Excess wine production is forecast to reach 15 per cent [1.5 billion litres] of annual production by 2010” says the European Union's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel. Something has to be done. Even though the EU has an annual budget of 1.3 billion euros (£880 million) to help the wine sector, 500 million euros of this are currently spent simply getting rid of wine for which there is no market, primarily by converting it into industrial alcohol.

True, there are private wine Domaines and even some Cooperatives who with substantial subsidies, astute marketing techniques and meticulous, state-of-the-art production methods are bucking the overall trend. In particular some Caves and Domaines are now adopting much simpler wine labelling policies for their country wines (Vins de Pays), focussing on single grape varieties (Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Syrah), or even frivolous but eye catching labels such Rozy, Daisy, Fizzy, Le Jaja de Jau … For these and similar enterprises Mariann Fischer Boel is proposing to allocate 120 million euros a year over five years to promote European wines abroad.

Nevertheless the overall trend in sales (apart from champagnes and highest quality classed growth wines) is very firmly downwards. The reasons are straightforward and by now well rehearsed, at least in outline. The French themselves (especially the young) have been drinking a lot less of the stuff: 20% less so during the 1990s. Also, competing and market-wise producers in the so-called New World countries have ousted the French from their throne. One major Australian producer, for example, increased its exports in America from 144,000 cases in 2001 to 7.5 million cases in 2005. Imports of New World wines into the EU have increased by 10 per cent per year since 1996. Worse still, in 2000, for the first time ever, Britain imported more wine from Australia than from France. Of the top ten best selling wines in British supermarkets, none are now French. Quelle horreur!

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Some Vignerons here in Lansac carry on because they know no other life. The vines are their lives, no matter how meagre the returns, not to mention losses. Our stocky, smiling octogenarian neighbour Denis (whose village lineage goes back a long way) once vowed to me that he will continue to work “jusqu’à la fin” – until he drops. Furthermore, he insists, “il faut travailler avec passion”. One must work with passion. He is as good as his word. In the hot months, as I, lazy so and so, set out on my walk around 9.30 after a leisurely breakfast and a read of the newspapers, I greet Denis and his good lady Marie (an exile from Spain in the early 30s) returning from their day’s toil. They began at 5.00am.

The already-mentioned Thierry is a bachelor in his 40s. He lives with his parents and, knowing no other life than his vines, battles on. Alas he finds it ever more difficult to borrow money for the essentials of his trade such as a decent tractor, mechanical sprayer, and a broyeur or twig crushing machine.

No wonder there are repeated stories around here of bankruptcy and even suicide. One man was found dead in his vines near Estagel after having drunk a gallon of weedkiller. Another in Baixas was in despair when he found that for every 100 euros he spent on the essentials of his trade he was returning no more than 106. He had the humiliation of having to rely on his wife to bring home the bacon. No doubt by now he also has grubbed up.

Around 10,000 jobs have reportedly been lost in the Languedoc-Roussillon in the last 2 years. And no wonder. Even when the Caves Cooperatives can sell their wine, they are getting no more than 35 cents (24p) a litre for it. And yet the supermarkets flog it for 10 times as much. Say no more! Other problems the vignerons have had to face include the importation of musts from Chile and New Zealand. They have been fermented over here and passed off as French wine.

However, in these southern parts of the Languedoc-Roussillon, there are very few signs of the militant action being taken further north by groups such as the CRAV (Comité Régional d’Action Viticole) who have smashed open storage vats in Montpellier, sending 730,000 litres of wine gushing into the street. But however much damage these Luddites inflict, they will sooner or later realise that they are, to put it crudely, simply doing the proverbial in the wind. There is no longer a market for their produce.

One can only wish all the best for the likes of Denis and Thierry, and say Bon Courage! They would probably keel over and die if ever they had to give up.

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All this serves to highlight the increasing importance to the local economy of other activities to offset the wine lake crisis. And it isn’t just the wine lake. The whole agricultural sector generally is surviving on ridiculously small margins because of cheap imports from Spain and North Africa of peaches, tomatoes, salads and all the rest. Hence the regular protest dumpings of huge lorry loads of produce in front of the Préfecture (administrative headquarters) in Perpignan, winter and summer.

The region’s future lies partly in the further development of tourism. Of which more next time.

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Sources:

Henry Samuel, telegraph.co.uk 05/07/2007
L’Indépendant – various issues over several months
french-entree.com: An Introduction to French Wine
www.decanter.com

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Subject: Life in France, Agriculture, Wine production