Small winegrowers feel the economic crisis

In its leading article the business paper Les Echos analyses the impact of the economic crisis on wine growers in Bordeaux: "Within less than a year the economic crisis has drastically changed the market in Bordeaux, by far the most important and most internationally oriented in France. The crunch is forcing major winegrowers to forfeit a small part of their former excesses, but it is taking a high toll on small producers. The speculation bubble created by the roughly thirty most important châteaux has burst. But they have little cause to worry: even if their prices drop substantially this year they will still be well above cost price. Nevertheless [many] winemakers are in danger. These farmers are being throttled by a unique coincidence of falling prices and plummeting production volumes. A litre of their red wine, whose AOC [certification of origin] stamp is the most famous in the world, is worth only four times as much as a litre of milk."

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