On the morning of Wednesday, February 28th, a vehement protest erupted against the négociant, Castel Frères. Enraged farmers dumped manure, hay, tires, and even vine stocks at the entrance of the Blanquefort site near Bordeaux, considered the largest wine cellar in Europe, effectively barricading the entrance and denying access.
Following recent court rulings that ordered the trading companies Excell and Ginestet to pay damages to a winemaker, deeming the purchase prices for wine they had paid as "abusively low", there is now a large-scale protest against another négociant. Castel Frères has also come under the scrutiny of the trade union organizations Jeunes Agriculteurs de Gironde (JA) and the local branch of the Fédération nationale des syndicats d‘exploitants agricoles (FNSEA) due to low prices.
"The price must be built 'forward': from the production costs, including the remuneration of the producer, to the consumer price."
"We are blocking the most important wine merchant in Bordeaux. The price must be built 'forward': from the production costs, including the remuneration of the producer, to the consumer price. This is an absolute and urgent necessity to prevent the bankruptcies of winegrowers in our department from getting out of control," a representative of the JA is quoted in the French industry magazine Viti. According to the FNSEA in the same report, representatives of the winegrowers were received by the management at Castel Frères to negotiate prices.
Castel Frères claims to be the market leader in wine logistics in Europe. On the company's website, it is claimed that they sell 16 bottles of wine per second and earn €800m in turnover per year across all company divisions.
