This week, we say goodbye to some of the wine world’s greats. We also investigate the lastest troubles facing some Argentinian producers, as well as what the latest EU-India deal means for Italian wine.
© Roberto Vivancos / Shutterstock | Some of Argentina’s biggest names continue to face financial woes.
This week, the European press was full of news and speculation over the EU’s newly-minted trade deal with India (see below for Italy’s hopes on the agreement). However, just how much this might counteract the revelation that the EU expects wine consumption in the bloc to contract by 0.9 percent over the next 10 years, remains to be seen.
An agriculture report for the European Commission says it expects annual wine consumption in adults to drop from 21.2 liters per year to 19.3 liters per year in 2035.
In Bordeaux, the region mourned the passing of Daniel Cathiard, former French ski team member and well-known proprietor – alongside his wife Florence – of Château Smith Haut Lafitte, in Pessac-Léognan. He was 81. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the wine industry mourned the passing of former Cloudy Bay winemaker, and later Dog Point founder James Healy.
“He convinced me to risk a whole bunch of perfectly good Chardonnay juice and put into barrels and not inoculate it,” ex Cloudy Bay winemaker Kevin Judd (now of Greywacke) told industry publication New Zealand Winegrower in 2024. “I thought it was completely crazy. The wines during ferment smelled disgusting and I was convinced it was a complete waste of good juice. Then a year later this amazing, savory, really interesting Chardonnay evolved in the barrels.”
French broadsheet Le Figaro also this week covered the news that iconic Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate Château de Beaucastel had once again featured prominently as the backdrop for early episodes of the second season of the acclaimed TV adaptation of the Drops of God wine manga. The return of the wine-based TV series has featured on numerous wine websites and social media channels lately, but it wasn’t all silver screen magic.
“Seeing 70-90 people turn up is quite something,” said Beaucastel boss Charles Perrin. “A film crew is intrusive […] When you’re working in a winery, you need light and you make noise, but sometimes the film crew needed total silence for several days. We can’t afford not to work on the wines. Since we couldn’t go anywhere else, we had to adapt. So we sometimes worked at night, or vice versa.”.
Meanwhile, here are some of the other headlines from the week in wine:
Montes, Bianchi join Norton in debt worry
Well-known Argentinian wine brand Casa Montes has become the third major winery in the country to show signs of financial strife. The San Juan-based producer accrued over $300,000 in bounced checks over the last six months, with reports indicating only a third of the outstanding cash has been paid off.
National business daily El Cronista said official data from the country’s debtors registry showed Casa Montes checks began bouncing last May with the latest non-payment recorded as recently as January 19 (two weeks ago).
“Over that period, the company accumulated 286 bounced checks totaling 471 million pesos [just over $326,000],” said the report.
Of the outstanding amount, it is understood Casa Montes has settled 99 of the outstanding payments, accounting for just over a third of its debt – roughly $119,000.
It is not yet clear how bad things are at Montes, although similar troubles at Bodegas Bianchi – another major player in Argentina – are reportedly little cause for concern, just yet. Again, according to official data from the country’s central bank debtors’ registry, Bianchi has racked up debts of around $850,000 – all within the last couple of months.
While the report highlights that the Bianchi winery remains in the so-called “Category 1” level of financial concern – the lowest rating for troubled firms, dubbed “normal” (the winery also told El Cronista it was putting together a “normalization plan” with creditors) – this rating was identical, initially, when the now embattled Bodegas Norton (see Major Argentinian Winery Faces “Mega Bankruptcy”) made the national debtors’ registry with debts of just under US$1 million last year.
Norton, now in Category 4 (high risk), currently has debts of over $3 million.
Mâcon wines no longer “Vin de Bourgogne”
Here’s one to delight the pedants: basic Mâcon wines will no longer be able to carry the words “Vin de Bourgogne” on their label after France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, recently ruled in favor of a decade-old directive from the country’s appellations body, the INAO, banning the practice.
The court case was brought by an association of Mâcon producers after it emerged (following changes in the regions’ winemaking directives) that the words “Vin de Bourgogne” would contravene appellation law, despite Mâcon being a bona fide Burgundian region.
Effectively, the case hinges on the word “Bourgogne” which, as an appellation in its own right, is a protected name. Following changes to official winemaking directives brought in 2011, it turns out that basic Mâcon wines (not, it should be said, the likes of Mâcon-Villages and Mâcon commune wines such as Mâcon Cruzille, all of which can still mention “Bourgogne” on the label) are not made to quite the same quality standards – primarily with higher yields and lower minimum ripeness and alcohol levels – as the wines of the Bourgogne appellation.
Thus, basic Mâcon wines bearing the word “Bourgogne” are deemed to be undermining the quality strictures of the Bourgogne appellation itself – a form of false advertising, if you will.
Which is all well and good until you realise how small these differences are. Minimum ripeness and alcohol levels in Bourgogne rouge, for instance, sit at 175 grams per liter of sugar in the must and 10.2 percent alcohol. This drops to 171 grams per liter and 10.0 percent alcohol in Mâcon.
With the devil clearly in the detail, it is hard not to feel sorry for the Union of Mâcon Wine Producers (UPVM), whose appeal against the original ruling (in a case that has spanned over a decade) was finally dismissed last month. It is understood an annual production of around 3 million bottles will be affected by the ruling.
Organic French wine a two-speed affair
Despite registering continued growth, the organic wine category in France is becoming a two-speed road.
Overall figures for sales in 2024 show continued growth for organic wines in France since 2019, with an overall sales increase of 22 percent over the last five years. In the last 13 years, sales of organic wines in France have quadrupled and volumes have more than tripled.
However, behind the broad figures lies a tale of two industries, says industry publication Réussir Vigne. The publication pointed out that estate-based direct-to-consumer sales were still trending favorably while the bulk wine sector – the domain of larger, often cooperative operations – was slowing.
Indeed, supermarket sales were down 8 percent with superstore segment contracting by a third over five years (supermarket sales now represent 14 percent in volume and 7 percent in value of overall organic wine sales, compared to 22 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2019).
“There were many delistings during the high inflation era, because organic products still carry the stigma of being more expensive,” the president of organic wine trade fair SudVinBio and board member of the French agency for organic farming (Agence Bio), Julien Franclet, told Réussir Vigne.
Nonetheless, the on-trade and wine merchant segments remain strong, posting double-digit growth in 2024. The two areas make up nearly a third of all organic wine sales in the country.
The figures also hide some concern, however. While sales have grown, the growth of organic vineyard area could be set to outstrip demand.
“In the space of six years, sales value has increased by 50 percent, but at the same time, the vineyard area has doubled,” said Franclet. “Growth in supply has outpaced that of demand.”
Nonetheless, the outlook for the organic sector in France – domestically, at least – looks good.
“Organic farming in general is on the rise again,” concluded Francelet.
Italian wine’s high hopes in EU-India deal
The Italian wine sector is hopeful a recent EU-India trade deal will open up major growth opportunities in the country. According to Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, the deal could ” open up a vast expanse of potential for Italian wines and spirits” should the current 150 percent import duty on wines and spirits drop to around 20 percent – a fall due to occur over the course of the next eight years.
“This would truly open up a vast expanse of potential for Italian wines and spirits,” said the newspaper on Tuesday. “Consider that [despite high tariffs] €7 million-worth of European wines landed in India last year [and that] Italian wines [currently] account for €2 million in turnover in India.”
Although some way short of the roughly €8 billion Italian wine exports bring in overall, the deal is clearly being viewed with some hope amid the current doldrums the wine market is experiencing.
“This agreement offers commercial opportunities in a market with a rapidly growing middle class,” said Lamberto Frescobaldi, the head of the Italian Wine Union (UIV). “But above all, it represents a clear and positive response from the EU to the geo-economic tensions facing the continent.”
“Italian wine desperately needs open trade policies to further diversify its still limited scope, considering that 60 percent of its exports are concentrated in just five countries,” he addded. “This agreement, like the one with Mercosur – for which we hope to see provisional application – is therefore important and demonstrates the importance of business diplomacy.”
The Italian spirits sector was also full of hope, with tariffs due to drop to 40 percent (from 150 percent) in the agreement. Although India remains a major market for Scotch and brandy, the Italian distillers trade organization Assodistil is hoping the deal will “open up opportunities” for the likes of Grappa and Italian brandies.
Further woe at French glassmaker
More worry at the Bordeaux factory of O-I Glass – which produces bottles for the local wine and Cognac industries – with the announcement of the closure of a second furnace. The news comes less than a year on from the announcement of job cuts and the mothballing of one of the factories furnaces back in April 2025 (see Wine Downturn Hits Glassmaker).
Regional radio station FranceInter/France 3 announced the closure of furnace number 2 (furnace 1 was shut down last year) on Wednesday, adding that unions were mobilising after the company (Owens-Illinois) also announced a six-month hiatus in production. The report said that “no bottles will leave the factory for six months”.
Unions said they were unclear whether the shutdown was a temporary measure aligned with a new restructure or if further job cuts were in the offing. O-I announced it would be cutting 320 jobs – 15 percent of its workforce – last year.
According to O-I, the shutdown is for technical reasons – both installing new equipment and retraining staff – but unions are sceptical, suggesting the company is deliberately taking its time.
“This could have been done much more quickly,” Workers’ Force (FO) union representative Thierry Allemand told the radio station. “Management wanted to do it this way, and quite honestly, we really don’t know why.”
“[Production] could start up again, but without a new market, the shutdown might be extended until 2027 or later,” said CGT (Labor Confederation) union representative Marc Beurel.
Glass bottle production has been heavily affected through both the global downturn in wine consumption and the effects on tariffs (and, more generally, logistics issues in the years following the Covid pandemic).
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