Millions of litres of French wine are being poured away as the Government struggles to contain a falling market.
Vineyards are also being uprooted in a bid to help growers.
So far, more than €200 million has come from Elysee coffers to fund the scheme.
The EU has pitched in a further €200 million.
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said:
“It’s aimed at stopping prices collapsing, and so that winemakers can find sources of revenue again.”
However, the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB or Bordeaux Wine Council), which lobbies for wine producers in the region, has warned that some growers are in “great economic difficulty”.
Large protests are planned in the Bordeaux region for December as growers demand more Government aid.
Much of the discarded wine is being converted into sanitising gels and biofuel products.
The wine industry has been hit by a myriad of reasons, including changing drinking habits of young people, less Chinese money investing in the market, climate change and a shortfall of migrant workers.
One wine grower said:
“The problem is that making wine isn’t like brewing beer, whereby you can suddenly just halt production.
“There’s a whole infrastructure that is hard to stop once you start.”
The European Commission estimates that wine consumption has fallen seven per cent in Italy, 10 per cent in Spain, 15 per cent in France and 22 per cent in Germany.
Meanwhile, wine production is increasing.
Richard Halstead, from drinks market analysts IWSR, said:
“Much of the French wine industry is based on a kind of everyday consumption that has collapsed.
“The French still drink twice the amount of wine compared to the Brits on a per capita basis.
“But the thing is, they used to drink even more.”
Ashley Tuiri, a buyer and manager at Ricardo’s Cellar, a bottle shop/bar in West London, sees this phenomenon first hand:
“Most of the young people we get in go for beer and spirits, and if they do drink wine, it will tend to be rosé or sparkling.
“A lot of them have been influenced by the fitness industry so they often go for a soft drink, or something low calorie.”
