France to spend €200M on destroying excess wine as demand falls | Hacker News Reader

France to spend €200M on destroying excess wine as demand falls

theguardian.com

15 pointsperihelions46 comments

- One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food while the next office pays people to destroy the surpluses. - That's not true! - No? - It's not the next office, not even the same floor!

I got sober at the beginning of the year and it’s been the single best lifestyle decision I’ve ever made.

There’s definitely a growing sobriety movement, at least in the US, I’ve noticed a major shift in bars accommodating non-drinkers in the last couple of years.

Same. But the social life took a nose dive as a result. Still trying to figure that one out.

What problems do you experience? Genuine question, because it seems to me you can still go out and just drink non-alcoholic stuff?

I've never really done it myself, but I've had several friends over the years who didn't drink, and their social lives seemed fine.

As a teetotaller for many years (35->20 years ago), the quantity of social life was fine but the quality often wasn't great - aside from the constant questions about why not drinking, etc., the gradual slide of everyone else into drunken shouting instead of conversation was a suboptimal experience. Gets wearing after a while.

There's a wide spectrum between drinking too much and not drinking at all.

Yet a lot of people end up on the wrong side of it once or twice in their post-25-life

In contrast to the other asshole: congrats!

Same, my wife got pregnant and now that she doesn't drink I stopped and honestly it's been a very easy change. I suggest people to give it a try and reap the savings and benefits before knocking it.

The article does not say which kind of wine we are speaking of.

If good wine, wouldn't they just store it and wait for the prices to go up again limiting production?

I am not a drinker nor do I do pot so I could be wrong but I think in the west at least a lot of people are moving away from getting drunk to getting high.

Can't they just save it for later?

Can they use the excess of wine to make some sort of non-alcoholic beverage? If my local supermarket sold "soda made of repurposed French wine" I would definitely buy a bunch of it and drink it at each social occasion, provided that the labeling on the can or bottle uses very big letters to state "this soda is made from French wine surplus." The real thing I wouldn't consume, it's bad for my health.

The BBC article has a bit more details. The alcohol will be reused for hand sanitizers, cleaning products and perfume.

Boisson sells smth similar to what you described: https://boisson.co/ I got a few bottles since my GF is pregnant. IIRC the bottles I got were from Germany. My GF claims they taste more like kombucha than sparkling wine.

Obviously the government should think about the welfare of the general population, not just the winemakers. Instead of destroying wine, the government should sell it at market prices.

You must not have read the article all the way through: the problem — if we can call it that — is a decrease in consumption but not in viniculture, hence the issue of a market glut.

I do not know which kinds of wine are to be destroyed, but I’d hazard a guess that it isn’t the kind that ages well.

A decrease in the consumption of wine can be fixed with a decrease in the price of wine.

Not always, and not always possible.

There is definitely more non-alcoholic consumption in the UK, with the major supermarkets allocating larger sections for AF beer. I don't know about the situation in France, but it would hit exports here in addition to Brexit problems.

I presume you are implying that the folks who aren't going sober will just consume more to offset if prices decrease, but there is going to be a limit to the amount they can.

But then you domino other producers to stop being profitable. Also, people will not want to drink more low quality bulk wine if it’s cheaper.

The government could also just pile it up in the town squares of France, as freebies from the EU for everyone. Would be gone in a day. Seems strange to “destroy it” when the public will do it for free and it’s been subsidised and paid for. Unlikely I realise, but it’s not like wine goes off. Maybe they need the space for the next load of wine they’re going to cellar and then destroy…

Plus the article says the alcohol from the destroyed wine can be reused - seems like a bit of an effort to go through given the alcohol content of around 12%.

Those people then will buy less wine negating the entire point of this whole thing.

Yes but at the same time, the people have paid for the wine - so the government is saying “you can’t have this wine you paid for, you have to buy more, even though you’re buying less wine”. The operation might stimulate an interest in wine and drinking, causing an increase in wine sales afterwards.

Why would they buy it in the first place then?

The entire point of this is to decrease the oversupply of wine. If anything this would make it worse assuming some proportion of the wine they bought would’ve been exported.

> the people have paid for the wine

Yes, it’s definitely unfair. So are gazilions of other subsidies paid out by most governments.

I'm not defending bailouts of winemakers, but based on my knowledge of the industry, the government would simply be unable to sell the wine at market prices. They would probably need to be sold at a loss.

France has been over-producing low-quality wine for a long time, mostly in the south as referenced in the article. These bottles normally sell for 2-5 euros at retail within Europe. There is a massive amount of competition at this price point.

Also not mentioned in the article is that French wine is falling out of favor in lower price categories. Spanish and Portugese wines are growing in popularity as are so-called "natural" wines.

Excess production of wine not wanted by the market will continue since the government is effectively, and nonsensically, susidising it.

A lot of other countries are doing something similar with diary or other food products.

You don’t want to lose the capacity to produce vital products like wine or cheese in case some unexpected event happens.

What if 30% of all wineries close and you have a severe drought in a few years. It would result in a extreme humanitarian tragedy…

The government should stay out of it.

If winemakers produce wine that the market does not want they should change or go under.

Wine is at the extreme end, but the subsidy is to preserve food security and jobs in rural communities. It applies to a wide range of agricultural goods and basic products of those goods (cheese, wine etc).

Wine is not really critical for food security, even in France. Their wheat farmers are.

No, in France there are two aspects: first, the wine lobby is powerful. Second, vineyards and wine are seen are very symbolically important for the country and its identity, down to how the countryside looks.

That would being down the market price which is exactly what they’re trying to avoid.

Maybe they could send/smuggle it to others countries (e.g. Scandinavia) and sell it at 50% of what they paid though.

The UK is a big importer of French wine

Reply on news.ycombinator.com