“France is home to the world’s largest organic area under vine”

t a recent presentation of the 30th Millésime Bio trade show due to take place on 30 January and 1 February in Montpellier southern France, its organiser SudVinBio seized the opportunity to highlight France’s leadership position for production of organic wine. “France is home to the world's largest organic area under vine”, stressed SudVinBio chairman Nicolas Richarme, pointing to 90,298 ha of vines already certified, along with a further 69,570 ha in the process of switching to organic in 2021. Although the total of 159,868 ha puts France in first place, the figures should be put into perspective – Spain and Italy already boast more than 100,000 ha of certified vineyards each and therefore currently rank ahead of France, but their rate of conversion is much lower than in France.

“France’s dynamic conversion rate has allowed organic vineyard acreage to double over five years, with a further 20% increase in conversions for 2021 alone. Winegrowing is one of the French farming industry’s star pupils as 20% of France’s utilised vineyard area is organic, compared to an average of 10% in other sectors”, said Richarme. The SudVinBio chairman also welcomed the low rate of growers dropping out of the organic scheme, “which has remained at around 4% per year for the past 5 years”. Behind all this apparent bullish news, however, lurks the spectre of uncertainty about the market's capacity to absorb newly certified volumes of organic wines. Richarme is not one to dodge the reality of the situation but rather map out the industry’s future. “We are working hand in hand with marketing companies who needed these volumes to enter sizeable markets. They are now able to do so with a choice of wines that meets these expectations and offers robust prospects for future vintages”.