Wine in crisis? Now comes the 'dear barriques': sales drop by 15%.

Declining consumption, changing fashions and tastes - but also dietary reasons and, finally, at least in Italy, a stricter Highway Code for those who drink too much - are pushing producers towards lighter and fresher wines, and consequently with less 'passage in wood'. Another sign comes from the 15% drop in a single year in sales of barriques, the smallest barrels used for ageing wines, generally the most valuable and especially reds.

It is not easy to say with certainty whether this is a slowdown due more to price increases driven by oak quotations (+50% in two years) or, indeed, to a drop in demand from wineries, which, with stocks at their highest, prefer to pursue other avenues. It should also be mentioned that France is also resorting to 'scrapping', the uprooting of vineyards encouraged to support the market from oversupply, also in view of the effect of Trump's tariffs.
The fact remains that the traditional French coopers' industry is suffering a severe blow.

The price of French oak has tripled in ten years, fuelled by demand from China and other sectors (such as furniture). According to Agence France-Presse (Afp) from April 2024 to March 2025, more than 540,000 French barrels were sold, witha 15% drop, particularly in France (-20%).

The sector's turnover of EUR 515.9 million fell by 9.5%, according to a report published this week. 'We have seen up and down cycles in the past: the financial crisis of 2008, the painful Asian crisis of the late 1990s,' recalls Nicolas Tiquet-Lavandier, vice-president of the French Federation of Coopers (Ftf) in pointing out that 'older members say that every ten years there is a crisis. Maybe now they are becoming more frequent... there is more volatility'.

The cellar-ageing wood industry in France employs between 3,000 and 3,500 people, from the preparation of the wood to the production of the barrels, and in this context it has had to adapt its working hours, explains Eudes Baufreton, general delegate of the Ftf and the Syndicat des mérandiers de France.