The French authorities have come up with a €70 million rescue
package for ailing wine producers, but as Kim Hunter Gordon and
Chris Jones report, they have once again failed to tackle the
principal problem - massive overproduction...
A shift towards lower priced table wines helped lift Spanish wine
exports in the first quarter of the year, but the lower revenues
mean that double-digit volume gains were rather more modest when
converted into value figures.
Speakers at a recent conference on the draft wine law currently
going through the Spanish parliament have stressed the beneficial
effects the law is likely to have on improving quality and reducing
over-production.