French wine bombs - The Scotsman

A shadowy group calling itself the Comité Regional d’Action Viticoles (CRAV) used the explosives in protest at the diminishing market for their wines and at the government’s offer of aid, considered insufficient to ease the industry’s crisis.

Wine exports from the Languedoc-Roussillon region fell last year by seven per cent in volume and by 6.8 per cent in value. The region has been particularly hard-hit by the current crisis industry, which is suffering from overproduction, a sharp drop in domestic consumption and aggressive competition from New World wines, which overtook French wines on global export markets in 2003.

Emphasis added.

My roundup of today's French wine business news:

1. French say no to EU wine tax: "The European Commission had suggested last year that a minimum tax level would help to curb fraud and smuggling within the EU. Currently, the huge tax differentials between countries like the United Kingdom and France have brought a lucrative bootleg trade in cross-border movement of wine and other alcohol."

2. "In order to think well of themselves, it seems, the French need to demonize the United States. So, as the cafes and boulangeries of their cities close down, one by one, in the face of a faster pace of life and the availability of more economical alternatives, it becomes the fault of Americans, and McDonalds restaurants are fire-bombed. As French wine exports fall in the face of better and cheaper wine from Australia, Chile, New Zealand, and – humiliatingly – the United States, and as the French themselves discover that a lot of the plonk they produce isn’t worth drinking and turn to beer, soft drinks, and other beverages, they protest the attempt of an American winery to develop vineyards in Languedoc, a region mostly overlooked by the wine snobs." (The American Thinker.)

3. India-France in wine trade talks: "With wine becoming a popular option in India, the french minister and his Indian counterpart Subodh K. Sahay are all set to have a fruitful discussion on India, France — and wine. While Forissier is likely to talk about the prohibitive cost of French wine in Indian markerts due to taxation, the agenda on the Indian side will be to talk about India getting French expertise for boosting its fledgling wine industry and maybe even exporting Indian wines abroad. "

4. Welsh wine woes:

Not that everything in the T£ Croes vineyard is rosé. Mr Dean is upset Customs and Excise imposes a £1.50 levy on domestic wines, which put Welsh bottles in the £6.50-£7.50 category. He said: "The French pay only 15p per bottle, which puts British winemakers at a significant disadvantage. I believe smaller cider makers don't have to pay any duty, so I can't see why that can't apply to us." Last week he joined fellow Anglesey winemaker Tom Barlow, of Gwinllan Padig, based at Llanbadrig, near Cemaes, to lobby then-MP Albert Owen. Mr Barlow believes they have a case: "By the time you've added VAT the government takes £2.20 a bottle, and then any profits you make are taxed at 22%. We have to be selling 100,000 bottles a year, at a £1 profit, to generate a turnover sufficient to pay wages. It's why 30 British vineyards close each year.