Former French international rugby player and eponymous wine producer Gérard Bertrand says the current crisis affecting the French wine industry is "only the start" of a downturn in wine that will go on for up to five years.
In a long-form Q&A with French wine news website Vitisphere, the Languedoc-based wine producer covered a wide range of topics affecting French viticulture, winemaking and sales. This ranged from changing consumption and buying habits ("almost 50 percent of wine in China is bought on a phone"), the "outdated" Evin Law that regulates alcohol and tobacco advertising in French media, wildfires and irrigation in the south of France as well as the potential revival of the Sud de France label (see "Sud de France" officially axed in Sherry brings Zorro to tears).
There was, however, particular emphasis on the current straits of the French wine industry, which is dealing with declining domestic sales and headwinds, including the likes of US tariffs, in overseas markets.
"Let's not kid ourselves, we're not at the end of the crisis, this is only the beginning," he said. "This is a structural and cyclical crisis that's going to last between three and five years, I believe."
As well as changing consumer patterns, he also said part of the French wine crisis was a structural readjustment.
"If Bordeaux is suffering so much, for example, it's because, in the space of 20 years, they went from a vineyard area much more based on white wines to an area that was very red," he said. "In France, we need more whites, which can produce still as well as sparkling wines, because these are growing markets."
Taking Italy as an example – indeed, Italy was frequently cited – he said the country was planting vines "despite its domestic market dropping by 9 percent against last year".
Indeed, the globally well-regarded sexagenarian said that French wine should not be concentrating on the now, but engaging in plans to grow internationally.
Although vine-pull and crisis distillation programs are being enacted across France (and wider Europe, including Spain), he said the country would "always be one step behind" and was looking for greater financial aid from the government in order to finance marketing opportunities to the tune of €100 million annually across five years.
"We've got to understand that Italy has been doing this for five years," he said. "In Canada, for example, when US wines were pulled from the shelves, the president of the Italian wine association requested a meeting with the SAQ and the LCBO, the two main Canadian liquor boards (in Quebec and Ontario), to see what they could do together: they created 'Italian Month'. As a result, Italian wine sales are up 40 percent, while we're only up 5 percent.
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