13 French co-operative wineries open a ’one-stop-shop’ for bulk wine buyers

fter eight months’ planning, the Bulk by Languedoc Team project was officially launched at this year’s World Bulk Wine Exhibition at the end of November in Amsterdam. “Terroirs du Vertige has been exhibiting at the WBWE for ten years but we constantly came to the conclusion that we were losing customers due to insufficient volumes and the fact that buyers did not want to go to the trouble of visiting individual wineries”, explains Benjamin Andrieu, director of one of the thirteen partner co-operatives* located in Talairan, in the Corbières region of southern France. As it happens, twelve other wineries – spread across Languedoc-Roussillon and the Rhone Valley – had reached the same conclusion, and had met at the WBWE.

The project’s aim is not to replace existing distribution networks but rather to “join forces so that we can approach export markets together”, says Andrieu. In conjunction with the SupAgro agricultural college in Montpellier, statistics research was conducted, and ultimately five wines were produced in the different wineries and then blended. “We designed styles of wine that we felt matched desired international profiles. We were extremely stringent with our selection criteria and during the blending phase”, stresses Andrieu. The range features three reds – labelled Vin De France, IGP Pays d’Oc and Vin De France Premium – and two whites, Vin De France and IGP Pays d’Oc. The IGP wines are Merlot and Chardonnay varietals, whereas the VDFs are blends.

A minimum order volume has been set at 500,000 litres, with maximum availabilities of 2 million litres, except for Chardonnay where the range is 50,000 to 500,000 litres. “We don’t want to deal with lots of small orders”, explains Andrieu. Each winery handles the winemaking process and the wines are then shipped to two of the partner wineries where buyers can load them and pay for them with a single invoice. “The aim is not to disrupt our existing, individual sales structures. We all have good sales and want to keep our customer portfolios”.

*The wineries are Vignobles du Terrassous, Terroirs du Vertige, Vignobles de Carsac, Lauran Cabaret, Les Celliers d’Orfée, Florès, Clochers et Terroirs, Les Collines du Bourdic, Vignerons des Capitelles, Les Vignerons Créateurs, Vignerons de Montfrin, Vignerons du Castelas and Maison Sinnae