Far from the great classified growths, they bring together thousands of winegrowers hit hard by the crisis in the sector, between overproduction, drop in consumption and climatic hazards: the time has come for restructuring or diversification for many wine cooperatives.
In New Aquitaine, where the vine uprooting campaign partly co-financed by the State and the inter-professional association will reduce the surface area of Bordeaux by around 10%, safeguard procedures and legal redress are increasing. In Gironde, the Univitis winery was placed in receivership in July, while Alliance Bourg, under protection since last year, has just seen its plan validated over ten years by the Libourne court.
Further south, the Winegrowers of Buzet and those of Brulhois, in Lot-et-Garonne, have also initiated safeguarding procedures in recent months. In the neighboring region, Occitanie, there are also “more and more questions about, for example, cash flow and the ability to pay their members”according to Frédéric Roux, president of the regional union of cooperative winegrowers.
Boom you cremant
“Overall, cooperatives are not doing any worse than the whole of French, or even international, viticulture, which is suffering a lasting crisis”however, nuance Stéphane Héraud, president of the wine section of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Agricultural Cooperation which brings together 51 cellars and unions and 3,900 winegrowers.
“The current crisis goes beyond Univitis. It affects the entire sector”adds Michaël Cousinet, president of Univitis and wine manager at FNSEA 33. “Plenty of stocks, the decline in consumption of red wine, bad weather and recent crises, such as Covid, the war in Ukraine and general inflation have hit producers hard. »
In this context, the structure of cooperatives has rather enabled “to make a buffer” in “drawing on cash reserves” to guarantee remuneration for winegrowers over the last four years “very difficult”estimates Mr. Héraud, referring in particular to two episodes of frost which destroyed the harvests in 2021 and 2023, particularly in Bordeaux.
Diversification in organic and wine tourism
To get out of the impasse, some cooperatives are seeking to diversify, by promoting organic wines, by expanding their offering to innovative products (sparkling wine, alcohol-free, etc.) or by developing wine tourism. “While red is failing, white and rosé wines remain stable, crémant is progressing”points out Mr. Héraud. “And it’s not very complicated for us to transfer vines by crémant since we can do it with the grape varieties we have today”he adds, specifying that in the space of five years, Crémant production has increased tenfold in Bordeaux.
At Univitis, no crémant, but a profound restructuring. The cooperative has notably reoriented its production towards white and rosé wines, now in the majority, to meet demand “more dynamic” on these segments.
“Until now we produced 20% white, 70% red and 10% rosé. But today we made a big shift. We produce about half the volume in white and rosé and just half in red.”explains Mr. Cousinet.
No questioning of the cooperative model
“We now only make wine on one site, compared to five previously,” explains the president of Univitis, who deplores the loss of around forty cooperative winegrowers out of the 170 initially present. “It’s a real hemorrhage”he is indignant.
According to him, only “four to five cooperatives out of around thirty display a stable financial situation” in Gironde. For professionals, this wine crisis does not call into question the cooperative model, “essential to maintaining winegrowers in our territories”according to Mr. Roux.
“Without this model, we risk falling towards a totally unbalanced system, where only very small winegrowers and huge private groups would remain, with pension funds ready to buy up all the land in the middle”he adds.
