French Wine Bottle Shortage

Filed in archive French Wines , Wine Making , Wine News on July 18, 2007

I feel like the French cannot catch a break lately when it comes to winemaking. This year's grape harvest is threatened by months of heavy rains, and now wine producers are looking at a bottle shortage. The two main glass manufacturers cannot produce enough wine bottles to meet demand, but say they will be able to catch up by the fall. Some members of the industry feel that there is more to it, though.

From Wine Spectator Online:

"Glass manufacturers have decided to keep their stock down to a strict minimum and are reducing their range of bottles," said Alain Sichel, President of the Union des Maisons de Bordeaux. "They will only produce special items when they have a big order from several customers, making it complicated for marketers to use original colors or screw caps, for example," he explained.

But glass manufacturers feel that wineries have only themselves to blame, as they are largely responsible for the consolidation of the market in the first place. "When there were many suppliers, they were at the mercy of their clients, which ultimately led to the smaller players going out of business," said Didier Rica, marketing manager for Saverglass, a medium-size glass packaging manufacturer.

The wine industry isn't accepting the explanation or the blame, especially one of France's top producers, Michel Chapoutier, who is also president of the Union des Maisons du Rhône. "BSN-Glasspack and Saint Gobain used to systematically offer us better deals than their competitors," he said. "Today they are trying to frighten us so we'll accept price increases." Chapoutier has suggested that French merchants join forces to invest in their own furnace to break free from what he described as an "illicit cartel."

Right now it looks like a case of "he said/she said" and we can do nothing but sit back and watch how this plays out in the coming months.