A cocktail of problems has hit the wine industry, including demand falling as more people drink craft beer.

The French government is allocating €200m (£171.6m) to destroy surplus wine and support producers.

It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer.

Overproduction and the cost of living crisis are also hitting the industry.

Most of the €200m will be used to buy excess stock, with the alcohol sold for use in items such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume.

  • nomadjoanne@lemmy.worldEnglish
    677·
    1 year ago

    Damn. I’m much more of a craft beer person, but this is sad. Is just marking it down not an option?

    Edit: Oh, never mind. They want to stop prices collapsing. Yeah, sounds like France. Forever bailing out their farmers 🙄

    • AnticorpEnglish
      411·
      1 year ago

      Is just marking it down not an option?

      Not when you’re propping up billionaire monopolists.

    • Can_you_change_your_username@kbin.social
      351·
      1 year ago

      To avoid price collapse and still sell it they could create a generic label to bottle it under and export it. They could probably sell it near the original price in the US with a good marketing campaign.

      • Jackofmany@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Australia has so called “clean skin” wines. Plain bottles with only the region and grape type.

        Large volumes of surplus wine gets sold like this so the big brands can manage their brand value.

        It’s pot luck what you get, but sometimes it’s gold and it’s nearly always half decent.