It was a Spanish wine lover’s nightmare. For three hours on Oct. 19, an angry mob of winegrowers from the southwest of France blocked the A9 highway near the town of Le Boulou just across the border from Spain. They lit tires ablaze to stop traffic so it could be searched. They were hunting for trucks carrying Spanish wine.
Two tanker trunks carrying red wine were emptied, their liquid cargo spurting onto the asphalt. Then a tractor trailer carrying pallets of Freixenet Cava was opened up, and the contents smashed and thrown onto the ground, bubbles fizzing out as the liquid streamed into a ditch on the side of the road. Another truck transporting tomatoes was emptied, the cargo splattered onto the road.
The protesters were railing against Spanish wine, arguing that while they are dealing with difficult economic conditions, France imported more than 650 million cases of Spanish wine in 2022. (It’s not clear why the tomatoes met such violent scorn.)
Local authorities counted 380 participants in the riot. Frederic Rouanet, president of the Aude winegrowers syndicate, described the situation as an “explosive cocktail” triggered by a poor harvest due to weather, increased costs due to inflation and wine prices that don’t reflect those factors.
But in some ways the French vignerons are shaking their fists at modern trends: French wine consumption is declining, and sales of value-priced wines like the ones produced by these growers are declining fastest. Spanish producers are offering lower prices.
David Drilles, president of the winegrowers syndicate in the Pyrenees Orientales, said the revolt came on the heels of four years of adverse weather. “We have no money, no visibility—we can’t take it any longer. We are waiting for support.”
The Spanish confederation of merchandise transporters (CETM) called for legal action and denounced the “completely unjustified attacks, which endanger the safety of professional drivers and lead to significant losses for the sector.”
Once the crowd had flooded the highway with cava and tomatoes, they effectively blocked traffic by driving at a snail’s pace in the direction of Aude until late afternoon. Their wrath still unabated, they proceeded to the government tax offices in Narbonne and lit a bonfire of tires and wood pallets outside.
This hasn’t been the only recent incident. Earlier this month, arsonists attacked a bottling company and négociant in Aude, in apparent revenge for the companies having used imported foreign wine. While Rouanet said he didn’t support that kind of attack, he warned it could become a daily occurrence, “considering the current situation.”
