“Will the market respond to the huge influx of organic wines from Bordeaux?”

ldquo;We are no longer asking ourselves “Is Bordeaux going to change? Is Bordeaux going to switch over to organic fast enough?” The question now is: "Will the organic wine market respond to the transformation and influx of organic wines, which will be huge in years to come?” asked Bernard Farges, chairman of the Bordeaux wine marketing board CIVB on 18 May, during a video conference at the Cité du Vin hosted by Xavier Sota, a political journalist from the Sud-Ouest newspaper.

Stressing the current significance of the switch-over to organic in the vineyards of Bordeaux – including those on his own property in Entre-deux-Mers – Farges specified that although “we are not sure that the market will fully absorb this amount of organic wine in due time, that does not mean that the growth will stop. I don't know if Bordeaux will be 20, 30, 50, 60 or 100% organic. Nobody has a clue”.

The only current certainty is the increase in organic prices, which has galvanised a certain number of winegrowers into action and encouraged them to switch over. “At this very moment in time, we have a shortage of organic wine in Bordeaux. There is pressure on prices of organic wine in Bordeaux, but the market is still a niche. If supplies to the market were to increase at a faster pace, no one knows how it would respond”, warns Farges. He recalls the extensive opt-out of organic winegrowing in the Rhone Valley during the 2015 vintage, which was caused by the abundant crop in 2014 and subsequent spiralling downwards of prices, not to mention the damage wrought by black rot and flavescence dorée.