A New Gameplan is Critical for the Wine Industry's Top 'Chien'

It’s now or never for French wine. The decline of the greatest wine-producing country in the world has been well documented, from the recent news that Bordeaux exports plummeted a whopping 25 percent in the first three quarters of 2004 to a demoralizing 5-percent drop in domestic wine consumption in 2003 alone. Indeed, the average Jacques drinks only half as much as he did in the 1970s. It’s a French paradox, seeing as France is still unquestionably the source of many of the world’s greatest wine regions. “The barbarians are at our gates!” declared an 80-page report written for the industry. “Is the flood of wines from the New World going to sink the wine industry on the Old Continent?” Those words exemplify the reason for the industry’s decline. They articulate France’s myopic, self-important and completely un-nuanced view of the world’s wine industry. “We should have seen this coming a while ago,” Denis Verdier, president of the Confederation of Wine Co-operatives of France, admitted to the Associated Press. “We were resting on our laurels a bit.” A bit? The French are only drinking half the wine they did 30 years ago, and yet all Verdier can do is concede that industry members have been taking five. Well, I hope they’ve at least been having sweet dreams, because while the French were taking a breather, the “barbarians” were actually working to sell their wine. France pretends to worry about the health of the industry on “the Old Continent.” But last I checked, Spain was experiencing double-digit growth. Italy’s doing just fine. As long as the French see the rest of the world’s wine producers as an inferior horde and blame them for their belly-flop, they can never hope to recover. In an effort to solve its problems, the French have bandied about all sorts of ideas. Le Figaro came up with its own list of 20 suggestions, which ranged from the substandard (allowing wood chips) to the ridiculous (being able to put lower-end wines in a bag-in-the-box format). Other ideas included allowing more blending freedom (like being able to put Syrah into Burgundy) and simplifying labels. But all of these ideas threaten to compromise what makes French wine unique and honorable – its exactitude and tradition. I love that Côte Rôtie and Hermitage are labeled by their region and not their variety, as they would be in California, though it wouldn’t bother me if they wanted to stick the word “Syrah” on the labels. Anyway, these are minor points. The problem with French wine has been one of marketing. While other countries have pounded the pavement to promote their wines, France has done precious nothing. My own experience as a wine writer tells a story. Consider the work other countries have done to promote their wines: If I wanted, I could have lunch twice a week with a visiting Australian winemaker trying to promote her wines. Spain has reached out to me on several occasions to visit and to meet with its winemakers. The same is true of Italy. Argentina, Chile and New Zealand put on numerous tastings a year. What is France doing? Less than nothing, it seems. I’ve even tried to reach out to France, calling its promotional organization for the food and drink industries, Sopexa, numerous times. The first few attempts met with no response and the last finally got me on its mass e-mail list. Still, I never hear from them directly about tastings or promotions. Now, I don’t blame French producers. The French industry – composed significantly of little “vignerons” working for themselves – is simply not constructed for large-scale public relations efforts. By contrast, the New World wine industry is largely based on corporate investment and therefore boasts a number of big dogs with plenty of marketing capital – an expensive Penfolds promotional campaign will ultimately benefit all Australian producers. Where French wine producers are being undone is not in wine quality (Do the French really think that the best way to compete is to allow producers to make worse wine?) or even labeling, but one of advertising and promotion. Instead of using its money to write 80-page reports, France might think about mounting an educational campaign to inform younger drinkers what Côtes du Rhône is. Instead of contemplating blending Syrah and Pinot Noir in Burgundy or artificially oaking its cheaper wines, perhaps it might consider talking about how wonderful Sancerre can be with oysters. French wine is made to go with food – how about promoting that? France should indeed be proud of its wines and of its system. But pride and arrogance are two different things, and in today’s competitive world, complacency won’t get you very far.