The uprooting will be able to begin in the coming months. The European Commission announced on Friday that it had validated the sanitary uprooting plan for vines in Bordeaux, giving the green light to this subsidized system for which a thousand winegrowers in difficulty are candidates in Gironde.
After studying the file “under EU rules on state aid”, the European executive authorized this aid plan, which proposes a bonus of 6,000 euros per hectare uprooted, and its State funding of 30 million euros. The total envelope could go up to 57 million euros with the contribution of the inter-profession.
This “sanitary” plan, intended to combat Flavescence Dorée, a disease which threatens abandoned vines, indirectly makes it possible to reduce production volumes in a vineyard very shaken by the fall in consumption.
“The aid will take the form of direct subsidies to small and medium-sized businesses in Gironde active in the viticulture sector. The regime will be in place until December 31, 2025,” the Commission specifies in a press release.
“The Commission considered that the regime is necessary and appropriate to protect winegrowers remaining in activity against the health risk linked to the spread of flavescence ore disease,” she added.
One million hectoliters of overproduction
Some 1,085 pre-applications, representing 20% of wine growers in Gironde, were submitted this summer with a view to extracting 9,251 hectares, according to figures from the Bordeaux Interprofessional Wine Council (CIVB).
The State must provide at least 30 million euros, with the possibility of financing an additional 8 million euros, while the CIVB will match it to the tune of 19 million euros. The Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region is also offering 10 million euros in aid for the diversification of farms.
The largest AOC vineyard in France – 110,000 hectares cultivated – is suffering severely from the collapse of prices, the closure of export markets and overproduction estimated at one million hectoliters.
According to a schedule revealed in mid-October by the prefecture and the CIVB, the uprooting of eligible vines could begin “during the fall and winter”, after a “final submission of the uprooting request” during the month of November.
Initially, the final submission of applications was planned for September, after the harvest, but the wait for the European green light has changed this schedule.