Why is the French wine industry struggling?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2023
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The region of Bordeaux in the south-west of France is perhaps the most famous wine-producing area in the world.
But it’s struggling. While the prestigious, most expensive wines – Saint-Émilions, Pomerols and Margaux are selling well, others are not.
For the producers of the 850 million bottles of the region's famous red wine, it’s a difficult time due to a major decline in consumption.
We look at the reasons for this, the impact it’s having, and what winemakers are doing to help protect their livelihoods.
Presenter: John Laurenson
(Image: A glass of red wine. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Unexpected Elements is all about finding the surprising science angles to everyday news. |
| 0:06.3 | Mine absolutely blood. |
| 0:07.5 | Amazing to me. |
| 0:08.6 | That's Unexpected Elements from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.2 | Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:25.7 | A tractor bulldozing vines before they're pulled up and destroyed. |
| 0:29.1 | The sound of a wine industry in crisis. |
| 0:33.4 | I'm John Norrinson and for today's Business Daily on BBC World Service. |
| 0:40.4 | I've come to Bordeaux in southwest France, perhaps the most famous winemaking region in the world. |
| 0:47.5 | And its most prestigious, most expensive wines, its Sainte-a-Milion, Pomerol and Margot are doing well. |
| 0:56.9 | But thousands of the winemakers who produce the bulk of Bordeaux's 850 million bottles of wine per year are suffering with huge unsold stock and huge debt. |
| 0:59.6 | We went through a period of great sadness. |
| 1:04.5 | Everything seemed completely black. |
| 1:06.6 | In the evenings, my father and I cried. |
| 1:09.3 | The main reason for this crisis, an historic and accelerating decline in consumption. |
| 1:15.7 | Young consumers drink less alcohol. They've got less addiction, basically, than my generation or my parents' generation. |
| 1:22.9 | Red wine in particular is in trouble. So is it possible that red is dead? |
| 1:27.8 | Why are people drinking less and less wine? |
| 1:31.1 | And what can be done to save an ailing wine industry? |
| 1:34.8 | All coming up on Business Daily. |
| 1:50.8 | So, Bacier, we're in a caro de vigné Bastian, 35, who owns with his father the Mercier |
| 1:56.7 | vineyard near the Bordeaux village of Cameron. |
... |
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