
A French wine trade war - edu
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/business/french-wine-trade-war.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
======
krona
Over the years I learned, through trial and error, that cheap French wine
hardly ever compares favorably with wine from New Zealand and Australia at the
same price point. More recently it's become true of Spanish wine, too.

I don't know whether it's because the French export their worst wine (or
perhaps I just have no taste), but since the French themselves are drinking
less of it, I can't help but think that complacency has crept in somewhere.

~~~
Iv
French living in Japan here. I think the same happens in the US: they use
"French" like a trademark to sell random shit. If you are going to buy a 5-10$
bottle, all that the "French" label will bring is an increase in price but not
quality.

Chilean and Australian wines are what I drink here when I go for a cheap
bottle. Still, I feel like they add some kind of preservative in wines here,
even good ones. There is an aftertaste I dont get with wines (even cheap ones)
in France.

But yes, complacency is also a factor. Wines are getting better everywhere and
foreign wine compete favorably in the cheap range.

Now I am just hoping that one day they will compete in cheese and that I can
buy some at the local supermarket without having a 5x multiplier because of
the "french" label.

~~~
malloryerik
Out of curiosity, what do you think of the Camemberts and blue cheeses from
Hokkaido?

~~~
Iv
I have never tried their blue cheese. I found some blue cheese sold at Aeon
that are decent.

As for the camembert, I have no idea why they call it that way. Unless I did
get particularly bad ones at my supermarket, this is really different. Very
little taste, closer to a brie actually.

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vmarsy
Those Spanish wines that are made to look French and fool the consumer with
their lavender fields etc as described in the article... Winemakers are
blaming the Spanish, but there's also the French grocery stores to blame: why
put the French and Spanish wines on the same shelf? Are they trying to confuse
consumers because the margins on Spanish wines are much higher ?

Here in the US, nearly all wine stores I've been to sorts wine per type (red,
white, etc) for local wines and have a specific foreign section "France",
"Australia", etc. Even regular grocery stores tend to do this too.

If groceries chains did this in France, consumers would then rarely buy the
Spanish wines unintentionally.

I don't think the winemakers would have a hard time lobbying for at least
forcing grocery stores to display foreign wines in a clearly labeled section.

~~~
titanix2
You're right that the stores probably play a role here. However in a typical
supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it would made little sense as
most the wine comes from the country anyway.

Conning customers with fake logos (for organic food for example) and
misleading packaging is a very common thing. The law forbid to use some
regional names[1] but creating some fake "Château Mytho" brand with the origin
of the product writing in yellow 4pt font size is still totally legal.

Some of this stuff is even legally organized. For example the "organic food"
label of the European Union allows up to 5% non-organic in the product. The
domestic label was then changed to match the European one, now allowing some
"accidental" GMO.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d%27origine_contr%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellation_d%27origine_contr%C3%B4l%C3%A9e)

~~~
switch007
> However in a typical supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it
> would made little sense as most the wine comes from the country anyway.

Do mean not separated by origin country? I thought they're mostly separated by
French/area region, though? You couldn't slip one of the Spanish wines in to
those sections.

Though I just googled photos of carrefour and found a photo of sections like
"vin entre 3 EUR et 4 EUR". That kind of layout could easily intermingle non-
French wine

------
faragon
A Coca-Cola Zero soft drink in a French restaurant in Paris (France) is
typically 5 to 6 euro per 50 cl (even in "normal" restaurants, not in the
Champs-Élysées nor the Eiffel Tower), while in Barcelona or Madrid (Spain) is
1.50 to 2 euro, being exactly the same product. So go figure with wine, or
buying a lunch (2x-3x more expensive in Paris than in Madrid or Barcelona). In
my opinion, that will be good for French people: they already do massive near-
dumping with milk production because of their high productivity/efficiency,
and they'll have to learn how to be efficient producing wine and fruits.

------
jnordwick
I only see nebulous claims of wines not being produced to French standards. Is
there anything more specific? Maybe the French standards are wrong is Spanish
originating wines are selling so well and even at similar price points.

~~~
zdkl
Don't underestimate the emotional response from the people who've done this
their entire life with the cumulated savoir-faire and effort of several
generations. The grape is a huge cultural thing here.

(Disclaimer: I'm french and had said emotional reaction. I don't even
particularly like wine)

------
xroche
> “We can produce the wine at lower cost because salaries are less,”

And also in many cases, because illegal immigrants, who work in these
vineyards, are treated in such poor conditions, close to slavery, that
salaries can not be matched without breaking labor laws.

~~~
jdavis703
Can you provide some sources for this? I know this happens in the U.S. but
this is my first time seeing an allegation like this for an E.U. country.

~~~
goldmouth
I remember reading about african immigrant being paid 4 euros an hour on
Sting's vineyard.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/underpaid-
illegal...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/14/underpaid-illegal-
migrants-unwittingly-used-on-idyllic-tuscan-es/)

[http://www.ibtimes.com/plight-migrant-labor-barolo-italys-
ki...](http://www.ibtimes.com/plight-migrant-labor-barolo-italys-king-wines-
other-famous-brands-made-workers-under-near-slave)

~~~
icebraining
Is that very low? 4€/hour at 8h/day, 22 days/month is 700€/month. I don't know
how are the salary levels in Italy, but that's quite a bit more than the
minimum wage in Portugal, and only slightly less than the minimum wage in
Spain at the time.

~~~
danmaz74
It's way below a livable wage in Italy if it's _before taxes_.

------
joejerryronnie
This article highlights the real downside to progressive globalization and a
major reason for the recent rise of populism (Trump, Brexit, etc). The
populist message of "bringing back the good 'ol days" is an impossibility but
the underlying economic frailty of large swaths of people is very real.

While typically a free market fan, I do believe the pendulum has swung too far
towards globalism in the last couple of decades. In general, this has vastly
improved the lives of millions of very poor families in developing nations -
but at a significant cost to families like blue collar Americans, leaving
millions feeling that they're being left behind by technological progress,
foreign labor, and politics/media that increasingly focuses on the "glamorous"
US coastal cities. This is a gross oversimplification of the myriad of
intertwined issues but this is the general perception for a lot of people.

We'd better figure out how to address this perception and begin to work on
tangible solutions soon or this type of violent response may only be the tip
of the iceberg.

~~~
OscarCunningham
I'd say that globalization often causes losses for the poorest and gains for
the richest, but that overall it increases the amount of wealth coming into
the country.

Therefore ending globalization would help the poor at the expense of the rich,
but you could also just take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
Since globalization brings more money into the country overall there must be
some level of redistributive taxation that makes globalization better than
non-globalization.

~~~
barrkel
Don't forget that there are gains to trade. It's not just redistributive; more
people are making more stuff (aka creating wealth). The pie gets bigger. The
risk is that some people's slice gets smaller, even in absolute terms.

Poor people who are still employed also gain from globalization, because their
inputs become cheaper.

Above all, too high a rate of change is what causes dislocation and destroys
lives, when large segments of the population are left without valuable skills.

~~~
tormeh
Yes, but shrinking the pie means that finite resources such as housing (land)
becomes cheaper. Even if my piece of pie gets smaller in absolute terms I
might still be better off than before because the price of housing and
domestic services have gone down.

------
altotrees
I worked in a wine shop for a while years ago. Occasional drinkers would
always come in wanting French wine, but after trying Argentine malbecs or even
American reds like those produced by Dave Phinney or say, K Syrah, would
always prefer those over the few French wines they had tried.

Granted, this is all anecdotal, and I have had some great French wines (love
that they are biodynamic as well for the most part), but to my eyes the wine
market is really broadening. French wines just may not hold the mystique they
once did.

~~~
csa
This should be expected.

Most new world wines like the ones you mentioned taste amazing as isolated
sipping wines, but sometimes compete with food rather than complement it.

Most European wines shine when consumed with food, but they often do less well
as sipping wines.

Note that these are broad-stroke comments, there are always exceptions, blah
blah blah. That said, any skilled sommelier can serve you the archetypes as
examples.

~~~
altotrees
You're exactly right. I meant to add that to my comment. Euro wines do usually
tend to really stand out with food, and really do pair well with it as you
said. Good point.

------
pmoriarty
_" We can produce the wine at lower cost because salaries are less," said Juan
Corbalán García, who represents the Agri-Food Cooperatives in Brussels. "But
that doesn’t mean we’re doing unfair competition."_

Perfect example of a race to the bottom.

~~~
eru
Has there _ever_ been a race to the bottom in terms of wages ever?

~~~
sidibe
what? Do you mean actual wages individually getting lowered? That's probably
rarer, but an effective race to the bottom of wages happens all the time, eg
when they move the textile factory from the Carolinas to China then to
Bangladesh.

~~~
eru
That's more of a reaction to the race to the ceiling in wages that's going on
in the background, ain't it?

They move from China to Bangladesh because competition from more productive
industries makes Chinese wages grow faster than what garment manufacturing can
support, don't they?

(I read that these days even cleaners get about 5 USD/h in the bigger cities.
But that's not because cleaners are more productive, but because non-traded
sectors get a case of Baumol's cost disease.)

------
adrianratnapala
Interesting how long it took the article to get to reporting what was
supposedly "unfair" about the competition. And then it was pretty vague --
i.e. Spanish wine doesn't have to be grown by French rules.

Presumably readers are supposed to assume the French rules are somehow
necessary. But Spain and many other countries seem capable of producing good
wine at different price points. Maybe the French just have the wrong rules?

------
zenonu
A greater understanding of the process and supply chain that affects the
products going into our body will be for the best. For any wine, if it was
clear where the grapes are grown, and where the wine was made, it'd give me
greater confidence in the product. This is especially true if it's a value-
oriented bottle.

~~~
riffraff
french wines have AOC, like italian wines have DOC, and similar things exist
elsewhere.

That basically only guarantees the origin of the grapes/wine, not quality, so
it seems (generally) implicit that if a geographical indication is not present
the wines are from "unspecified" locations, isn't that enough?

------
justifier
another interesting element of the wine trade across the eu was the ~2009
ruling on how rose could be produced

when i was working for a wine and spirits shop on the upper east side a
controversial ruling was proposed in the eu(o)

it stated that rose wine, which was becoming a popular wine in the newish
'priced to drink' wine market, could subvert the costly precision of rose
production, wherein for example one has to remove the skins at just the right
time, with a simpler method of just mixing red and whites together

french wine producers were among the leaders in lobbying against the proposal

it seems france won that battle(i)

(o) [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/17/rose-
wi...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/17/rose-wine-
provence-france-eu)

(i) [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-
drink/news/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-
drink/news/eu-abandons-plan-to-allow-blended-rose-wine-1700039.html)

.. rose=rosé ..

------
tedmiston
Are there certain classes of products that similar things happen to in the US?

------
dmduck
Chilean wine is the best!!!

------
gumby
A piece of interesting trivia about the Languedoc region: its name literally
means the place where people prononce "yes" as "oc" (well, "the 'oc'
language"). It's as if Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas" were in a region
named "the drawl zone"

Actually Occitan is now a dead language, and at the time it was current,
nobody pronounced "yes" as "oui" yet either. But the name persists.

~~~
umanwizard
> Occitan is now a dead language

What?? This is completely false. There are hundreds of thousands of native
Occitan speakers alive today.

~~~
wott
LOL, no. Most of the few native speakers I knew are dead. The rest is people
who learn a made-up language in school as a foreign language.

~~~
0x4a42
The many Occitan schools in my region are proving you wrong.

~~~
tripa
Existence of language schools doesn't prove existence of native speakers.

~~~
umanwizard
The existence of native speakers proves the existence of native speakers?

This isn't fake news, it's well documented -- every recent study on Occitan
has estimated at least 100,000 native speakers, on the very low end.

Yes, it's a very endangered language, and it might be dead in a few decades,
but it's not dead yet.

BTW, this only applies to France. In Val d'Aran for example (in Spain) it is
an everyday language that doesn't seem at any risk of disappearing.

