Angry French Winemakers Dump Thousands of Liters of Spanish Wine in Protest Against Unfair Competition

Hundreds of French winemakers staged a protest near the Spanish border in the Eastern Pyrenees department. They blocked a highway and poured significant volumes of Spanish wine directly onto the road, as reported by the French publication Capital.

The event took place early the previous morning, when around 300–400 winemakers from various regions in southern France gathered near the Spanish border. They obstructed the movement of trucks and unloaded several lorries filled with wine, which they then spilled onto the road. Over 240 hectoliters of rosé wine and approximately 10,000 bottles of sparkling wine were destroyed in this manner. This action was intended to express the winemakers' dissatisfaction with the government's support for the import of cheap alcoholic beverages from abroad.

In 2022, the import of wine products, primarily from Spain and Morocco, flooded the French market. It amounted to over 6.5 million hectoliters of wine, often priced at half the cost of local wines. Spanish wine, for instance, is sold in France for less than 1 euro per liter, while a bottle of wine produced in southern France typically costs around 3 euros.

Frederic Rouanet, the president of the grape growers' trade union, has called on the French government to implement a "Marshall Plan" for the wine industry to address the crisis currently affecting the sector. He stated, "We are requesting tax relief, per-hectare assistance, banking support, irrigation possibilities, and everything that can be done to pull the industry out of this crisis."

At the same time, in the Bordeaux region of France, winemakers are planning to remove thousands of hectares of vineyards due to declining demand and the challenges posed by climate change. Local producers are beginning to reduce the size of their vineyards due to a noticeable drop in red wine consumption, decreased orders from China, and increased production costs resulting from climate change.

It's worth noting that in mid-September, two million liters of wine spilled onto the streets of a Portuguese city due to an explosion of two tanks at the Levira distillery. The incident occurred in the city of São Lourenço do Bairro in the Anadia municipality. Local authorities declared an environmental emergency due to the extensive wine spill, which inundated main and nearby roads, fields, vehicles, and even seeped into the basement of a building.