On a late evening in March, a group of winegrowers wearing black balaclavas forced their way into one of France’s largest wine brokerages and ignited three Molotov cocktails. Within minutes, the business, Passerieux Vergnes Diffusion, was in flames, reports SF Gate.
Vigilante vignerons had previously raided two big wine distributors nearby, in the Languedoc wine-producing region, smashing offices and dumping a river of red wine into the streets.
The businesses had one thing in common: They had struck deals to import inexpensive wine from Spain, prompting a backlash among local winemakers who feared their livelihoods were under attack.
“I was stupefied,” said René Vergnes, a native of Languedoc who has run the Passerieux Vergnes wine brokerage business for 35 years. “Everything was destroyed.”
Vergnes was the latest target in a wine war across France’s largest wine-growing area, pitting independent wine producers against imports from other European Union countries, and the businesses that deal in them.
The movement has sparked outrage in Spain, where the government demanded a crackdown on what it called a violation of the EU’s free trade rules. Spanish producers also say the actions distract from graver threats to Europe’s wine industry, including Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, which could slow exports to the bloc’s biggest buyer of European wines.
And as the United States under President Trump pivots toward protectionism, European winemakers are expected to face stiff competition from Australia and other countries as the EU seeks new trade deals to compensate.
While France often conjures the image of well-to-do winemakers in regal chateaus, many are small struggling vignerons, especially in this region, otherwise known as the Pays d’Oc, which built its industry for over a century on low-cost table wines.