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.
Boom you cremant
“Overall, the cooperatives are not doing any worse than the whole of French, or even international, viticulture, which is suffering a lasting crisis,” however, nuances Stéphane Héraud, president of the wine section of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Agricultural Cooperation.
“The current crisis goes beyond Univitis. It affects the entire sector”
“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 widespread inflation hit producers hard. »
The structure of cooperatives has rather made it possible “to provide a buffer” by “drawing on cash reserves” to guarantee remuneration for winegrowers over the last four “very difficult” years, estimates Mr. Héraud, referring to two episodes of frost in 2021 and 2023 .
Some seek 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 losing ground, 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. In five years, Crémant production has increased tenfold in Bordeaux.
Model not questioned
Univitis has reoriented its production towards white and rosé wines, now the majority, to meet “more dynamic” demand in these segments. “We produced 20% white, 70% red and 10% rosé. Today, we made a big shift. We produce about half the volume in white and rosé and a little half in red,” explains Mr. Cousinet.
“We 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. »
