FRENCH winemakers got some long-awaited good news this week: their wines are selling well in the United States. Or at least some of them are.
Fat Bastard, for instance, is highly popular, and so too are Wild Pig, Red Bicyclette and Pont d’Avignon.
Those four were among the labels on display at Vinexpo, a wine fair in Bordeaux, and they set the tone for the debate about how French vineyards confront a crisis that has resulted in a lake of unsold Gallic wine of 2.5 million hectolitres (66 million gallons).
It has two causes. At home, the French are drinking less — 58 litres each a year on average, compared with 100 in 1965.
Elsewhere, France is losing market share to the New World, with exports down 9 per cent in 2004 and 13 per cent in the first quarter of this year. The decline was exacerbated by bitter Franco-American exchanges over Iraq.
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In response, many vignerons have adopted the traditional strategy. This involves demonstrations, vandalism, appeals and requests for state subsidies — the French Government announced a €70 million (£46.4 million) package in January, but vineyards want more.
A growing minority of French winemakers are catching up with a trend that began a decade ago and drawing inspiration from successful vineyards in New Zealand, Australia, California and Chile.
Jean-François Mau, head of a 100-year-old Bordeaux group,announced a new wine called You. It has a screw top and M Mau expects to sell two million bottles a year in the US.
Other Bordeaux vineyards have joined forces to create E-Motif, a range with gaudy labels and names such as Fusion Red and Exciting White, which are aimed at bars and nightclubs. Charles Perrin, 25, a vigneron from Provence, launched Sexual Wine, sold in a 25cl bottle with a straw.
The North America market will be the biggest in the world by 2008. And vineyard owners increasingly acknowledge that consumers there are bewildered by 38,000 different wines and labels that include details of the region, the district, the vineyard, the producer and the year of production — but not the one thing they recognise: the grape variety.
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Instead of these vins de terroir, they are now making brand wines. Take Fat Bastard, created for the US market by the Gabriel Meffre group of Provence. Fruity, with few tannins, it sold five million bottles last year. Wild Pig, from the same group, is doing as well.
It does not take long for the Californians to spot such an opportunity. Red Bicyclette and Pont d’Avignon are both produced in France by E&J Gallo, the biggest US producer.
Launched last year at $9 (£4.90) with a label showing a Frenchman in a beret riding a red bicycle, Red Bicyclette sold 140,000 bottles in six months. Gallo’s ambition is to sell 12 million in 2007.
Pont d’Avignon, at $16, was launched with a $5 million advertising budget and strict instructions on how it should be made, with colour as important as taste.
Pierre Philippe, commercial director of La Compagnie Rhodanienne, Gallo’s French partner, said: “The main thing about Pont d’Avignon is that it should be very red — rouge, rouge, rouge.” It is, which is why it will probably succeed.
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SELLING WINE TO AMERICANS