Oh no: France has a large wine surplus

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: France is facing a large wine surplus.

Maybe we should all book a trip to France, because they need help there. The country is in trouble. What's going on? They have a serious surplus of wine. I know, it's hard to imagine, but it's seriously true.

Wine growers are left with full barrels, and it has now become so severe that around Bordeaux about 15,000 hectares of vineyards will be destroyed. Just to clarify: that is about 13 percent of their vineyards, and there are over 1,300 wine growers in distress.

AT LEAST 2.5 MILLION (!) HECTOLITERS OF WINE ARE TOO MUCH
And that is across all of France. I can't handle that on my own (you know), which is why we might need to go in large numbers to support the wine industry. That 2.5 million is already a lost cause; it is being distilled. For example, the alcohol is extracted from the wine to be used for other products, such as hand gel, perfume, and that sort of thing. The French government has allocated 160 million for that distillation, but according to the wine sector, that is far too little; at least 200 million would be needed.

Wine sales already declined last year: 15 percent less wine was sold in supermarkets. It is expected that this will decrease even more, as experts predict that this sales will drop by a total of 60 percent over the next ten years.

What's going on there, man? Why doesn't anyone want wine anymore? The explanations vary widely: many people blame corona (because of less export to China), others blame inflation, taxes, and it is also said that French youth drink less these days. There are also critical opinions: the wine sector has not modernized enough in recent years and has thus brought this upon itself.

Coincidentally, I am going to Paris at the end of this month, and do you know what I am going to do there? A lot. Of. Wine. Drinking. Help is on something way.

Source: Het Parool