A new demonstration by Bordeaux winegrowers against the promotion of foreign wines in the Cité du Vin: the symbolic expression of a strong economic distress or a mistake of target in the blindness of anger? The Cité du Vin is multiplying the promotion of local wines in its cultural programme.

The treatment by the Cité du Vin of all the vineyards in the world is "a specificity that attracts many visitors, and not only people who are interested in wine, thus allowing many visitors who do not have any particular knowledge of this universe to this universe" says the establishment to Vitisphere.

he "funeral of French agriculture" is the shock demonstration that the Young Farmers of Gironde (JA33) are organizing this Thursday, December 18 at 5 p.m. in front of the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux. An operation that a press release poses "in protest against the promotion of Ukrainian wines that evening, in support of the large-scale mobilizations in Brussels on the same day and on our territory" against the Mercosur trade agreement and the management of the health crisis of Lumpy Skin Disease (CND). A demonstration at the intersection of agricultural struggles and the wine crisis.

Echoing the dumpster of agricultural waste emptied for the same reasons on the night of Thursday 11 to Friday 12 December by the Rural Coordination of Gironde (CR33), the action of the JA33 criticises "the promotion of Ukrainian wines in a territory in deep crisis" which would testify to "a realdisdain for the violence suffered in Gironde by winegrowers" in the face of non-remunerative prices and the crisis plan considered undersized with 130 million € for the final grubbing-up financed by France and a crisis distillation pending in Brussels (30 to 40 million € would be conceivable, when the sector is asking for twice as much). "The announcements for the wine crisis are insufficient and are mainly the resultof the 'sleeve effect'! The budgets are far too low, and awareness in Paris is not growing! " the press release hammers.

Institutional regrets

While the sector as a whole regrets the limited and delayed aid, some do not share the trade union actions targeting the Cité du Vin. As evidenced by the last general assembly of the Bordeaux Wine Interprofessional Council (CIVB), its president Bernard Farges welcomed an impromptu visit on Monday 15 December by representatives of the CR 33 (who came to drop off a new protest bin). "I regret that you emptied a skip in front of the Cité du Vin," the winegrower from the Entre-deux-Mers told them, stressing that "the Cité du Vin is 400,000 visitors a year to Bordeaux to talk about wine. It was created from the beginning, not as the city of Bordeaux wine, because we would not have been able to create it at all if we had focused on the city of Bordeaux wine alone, with a legal, fiscal and financial status that exists because we can have other wines in it. But it is between 80 and 90% of the comments made and the wines tasted that are Bordeaux wines. »

Confirming that there will be a presentation of Ukrainian wines at the end of the year ("we could at least be sympathetic to Ukraine at the moment"), Bernard Farges points out that by rejecting "actions on other wines, it is also refusing the promotion that we should have on wine. We need to communicate about wine in the broadest sense. Including Bordeaux wine, of course. And the tourists who come to Bordeaux are vaccinated, if I must say so. Openness to wines from around the world is also a guarantee of attractiveness, says Jean-Marie Garde, president of the Federation of Great Wines of Burgundy (FGVB), stressing that "we can see that in Burgundy, where only Burgundies are presented, the wine cities are not doing very well. In Bordeaux, we have this desire to talk about wine, more generally. Bordeaux has always been the reference, we are going through a difficult period, but we must not forget that Bordeaux has been the reference for wine for many years. »

 

 
Cité du Vin, the only wine museum in the world that doesn't just talk about the wine of the region in which it is located
 
 
Managed by the Foundation for the Culture and Civilizations of Wine, the Cité du Vin confirms to Vitisphere that its mission is to "defend, promote, share and transmit the universal and living heritage of wine to as many people as possible. Wine is presented as a heritage, a culture, that we share throughout the world and indeed, in our various cultural activities, we are interested in vineyards from all over the world and not only in Bordeaux. It is this dimension that makes the Cité du Vin unique: it is the only wine museum in the world that does not only talk about the wine of the region in which it is located, but about wine as a world heritage. »

This does not prevent the Cité du Vin from leaving the lion's share to Bordeaux wines. "The Bordeaux vineyard occupies a special place and is widely highlighted within the Cité du Vin" says the establishment, listing "two modules of the permanent exhibition entirely dedicated to Bordeaux and its vineyards, more than half of the wines tasted are Bordeaux wines, i.e. 25,000 bottles per year (at the Belvedere or in the Workshops), more than 600 tasting workshops are offered each year, in which at least one Bordeaux wine is always included (among them, the Bordeaux 360° workshop, which talks exclusively about the Bordeaux terroir more than 250 times a year, i.e. 6,200 participants) and on April 1st, the Via Sensoria sensory tasting trail will reopen, which will be entirely dedicated to Bordeaux (with 4 tastings)" for the 10th anniversary of the Cité du Vin (opened in 2016).

Article by Alexander Abellan, Vitisphere

photo credit: ©ANAKA, Cité du Vin, Agence Clémence Farrell, The Mill, Casson Mann, Les Films d'Ici and Blue Yeti.