Wine War in Southern France Has Streets Running Red
European Union labeling standards also make it easy for retailers to pass foreign products off as French — a problem
that plagues other European countries with their products.
Mr. Puech and other activists smashed thousands of bottles at retailers like Carrefour, which carried cheap Spanish wines made to look French, with pictures of chateaus
and lavender fields, and selling them at the same price as the competing Languedoc fare, creating sizable margins for the retailers.
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.
“Everything was destroyed.”
Mr. Vergnes was the latest target in a wine war across France’s largest winegrowing area, pitting independent
wine producers against imports from other European Union countries, and the businesses that deal in them.
“I was stupefied,” said René Vergnes, a native of Languedoc who has run the Passerieux Vergnes wine brokerage business for 35 years.
