THE growth in popularity of New World wines has compounded a slump in the French industry that has hit most of the 8,000 producers of Bordeaux harder than anywhere else.

Bordeaux exports fell more than 22 per cent in value and 12 per cent in volume last year, under pressure from the New World, falling consumption and the high euro. Claret sales in the UK fell 25 per cent in value over the past year.

Only the noblest of chateaux have escaped the worst crisis in the industry since the epidemic of philoxera, a vine disease, more than a century ago. Experts and the French Government have been warning for years that complacency, archaic rules and inefficient methods risked relegating its wine industry to the lower leagues.

Growers in the Languedoc and other regions have begun fighting back with simplified brands, varietal wines and novel bottle shapes, but Bordeaux is still locked into the ancestral system of family vineyards and artisanal methods.

For the first time, wines with the quality label of Appellation d’Origine Controllée (AOC) are being distilled this summer into industrial alcohol under a scheme to drain the 200 million bottles of excess Bordeaux production now in storage. This method of disposal had previously been applied only to vin de pays, the plonk produced in industrial quantities in other parts of the country.

Bordeaux growers are also tearing up 8,000 to 10,000 hectares of vines in a campaign to cut production. Farmers are receiving £11,000 per hectare to reduce their output or close completely. France has promised the European Commission it will reduce 8 per cent of its land under vines in return for compensation.

The schemes have done little to quell the discontent among growers, which has turned into violence in the Languedoc and elsewhere.

Times Recommends

• C&G axed - 1,660 jobs to be lost
• UK house prices rise 1.1% as buyers return
• Mixed reaction to US banks repaying bailouts