Bordeaux winegrowers have requested the uprooting of around 8,000 hectares of vines with more than 1,200 applications submitted as part of an aid plan for the first French AOC vineyard, the Ministry of Agriculture announced on Friday. This system, worth a total of 57 million euros, announced in June and approved in November by the European Commission, offers a bonus of 6,000 euros per hectare uprooted to fight against flavescence ore, a disease which threatens vines. left abandoned, “by de-densifying the vineyard”. The program co-financed by the State and the inter-professional sector, which can reach 9,500 hectares over two years, should also make it possible to reduce excess production. The counter will reopen in the fall of 2024 for the remaining 1,500 hectares.
In July, 1,085 pre-applications had been submitted with a view to extracting 9,251 hectares. “We are relatively close,” Stéphane Gabard, president of the Syndicate of AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur, told AFP. “This shows a certain enthusiasm among our operators who need to reduce their surface areas and avoid the health problems linked to the multiplication of fallow vines.”
The State has planned to finance the operation to the tune of 30 million euros – up to 38 million if necessary – for its renaturation component which consists of transforming the plots into forests or fallow land for a minimum of 20 years; the Bordeaux Interprofessional Wine Council (CIVB) is providing EUR 19 million for crop diversification. A press release from the ministry details the distribution of applications which illustrates, according to Mr. Gabard, the high average age of the approximately 4,000 wine growers living from their production in Gironde.
The first option, synonymous with a cessation of activity, was in fact favored by more than 700 candidates representing, before processing the files, nearly 4,000 hectares. They will benefit from a maximum overall amount of aid of EUR 24 million, “compatible with the envelope provided by the State for the part of the system which is its responsibility”. The other option, financed by the CIVB, attracted some 500 winegrowers to also uproot more than 4,000 hectares: these requests, however, exceed the available envelope of EUR 19 million. They will therefore be subject to a “stabilizing coefficient limiting the eligible areas” which will be determined at the end of the examination of the files.
The grubbing work will begin before May 31 in a vineyard which is suffering from the collapse of prices, the closure of export markets and an overproduction estimated at one million hectoliters. At the same time, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region will finance the agricultural reconversion of land after grubbing up to the tune of 10 million euros.
