according to Jean Viard, “farmers and consumers are in a very strong battle in the face of climate change”

On the occasion of the World Vine and Wine Congress, from October 14 to 18 in Dijon, and a conference this weekend, bringing together the ministers of agriculture from the member countries of the International Vine Organization and wine, sociologist Jean Viard discusses the challenges of adapting this sector in the face of climate change.

franceinfo responds today to a piece of news Social questionbefore the opening of the 45th World Vine and Wine Congress, from October 14 to 18. And beforehand, this weekend, the City of Dijon is hosting an interministerial conference, to talk about the future and the challenges of the wine industry in the coming years. An edition which will also celebrate the centenary of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) of which the Burgundian city is now the headquarters. Decryption with sociologist Jean Viard.

franceinfo: Is it true that between climate disasters, global warming, fewer consumers in our society, wine no longer really has the same place as before?

Jean Viard: Wine is constantly changing because the climate has already changed a lot. In my village, when I was a child, we started the harvest at the end of September, now they start at the end of August, but we harvest at night, so that it is cooler, especially the rosé wines. Farmers are in a very strong battle with the climate.

Afterwards, it turns out that today, consumers are also in a very strong battle. When we are hotter, we drink more beer, we drink less wine. And if we drink wine, we drink rosé first because we can put ice cubes in it. So red wine has a job to do to adapt to climate change. There is all that at play, and so on average, a French person drank 100 liters of wine per year, 30 years ago, today we have gone down to 40 liters on average. So it’s very important in 30 years.

The second question is that France has always worked on terroirs and châteaux, so the best wines are often French, throughout the world, in the great restaurants, etc. Recently, I was in Japan; in a Japanese restaurant, you have a bottle of Chilean wine, a bottle of Californian wine, you don’t have a bottle of French wine, because castle wines are too expensive. There are all these elements which are in full transformation. We still drink 33 billion bottles per year on this planet.

Has global production still declined in 20 years?

We consume less, it’s true, there are more of us on the planet and there are more countries that manufacture them. The competition is much tougher, and at home, we have all heard about the crisis in the Bordeaux region, because it is precisely a large red region. And then because there are also cooperatives and castles, but there are very large cooperatives which have more difficulty adapting, it is expensive, it is necessary to change, etc. It’s an exciting and essential issue, and it’s 11 billion, wine exports in the balance of payments. So in addition, in economic matters, it is a major issue.

For France, indeed, it is the second largest contribution to the trade balance, it is important but consumption patterns have also changed, we gather differently with friends and has that worked “against” wine?

But of course… Out of 10 bottles of wine, 5 are bought at the supermarket, and 3 are drunk at restaurants. When I was young, in restaurants, wine was served in bottles. Today, it is served by the glass most of the time. And we take a drink or two, so that too has changed enormously because we have reduced the quantity enormously and then in our society, where we take other drugs. Obviously, the wine lost a little.

So it’s true that wine has long allowed France to shine in the world, it’s a little less true now, why?

As wine is by terroir – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Provence, Alsace wines, Nantes region – basically, it is “a trip to France” to drink wine, because precisely it exists by terroir, whereas it there are countries where it is one wine per country. It’s very different, we sang that. Bordeaux, for many people around the world, is not a city, it’s a bottle.

So, depending on the territories at the global level, you don’t have the same effect at all. But certainly, it sings of France, it sings of French diversity, it sings of a way of making a nation, by being very diverse within the same body of territory and the same body of imagination. And wine is obviously, in this imagination, very important.

Jean Viard publishes his new work on October 18, with Editions de l’aube. Its title: The ecological individual. Birth of a civilization.