Max Bauer: "Ros at 40/hl is the price of anger!"
The sale of Varois ros in bulk at 40/hl triggers anger among winegrowers who denounce a price threatening the entire sector.
The threshold is as symbolic as it is insulting to the profession. In the Var vineyard, the multiplication of bulk ros wine transactions at 40 per hectolitre has triggered a wave of anger and concern.
Max Bauer speaks for a sector that feels sold off and warns of the disastrous economic consequences of such a price level. For producers, this price simply does not cover production costs, jeopardizing the survival of many farms.
A price that denies the value of work
Behind this figure lies an economic and human reality that winegrowers consider flouted. Max Bauer recalls that Varois ros is not an interchangeable product, but the fruit of expertise and constant labor: maintenance of vines, adaptation to climate hazards, advanced vinification, and significant equipment investments.
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Selling this work at such a low price is perceived as a negation of the added value and economic role of the winegrowers, employees, and cooperative wineries that structure the local economy.
A destructive mechanism for the sector
He denounces a situation that forces producers to work at a loss, deplete their cash flow, and compromise the future by giving up the investments necessary for the sustainability and quality of their production.
Far from being a solution to sell volumes, these bargain sales are seen as the cog in a deflationary spiral. By pulling market benchmarks down, they provide merchants and buyers with arguments to exert ever greater pressure on all transactions.
"These sacrifice-price sales solve nothing. On the contrary, they feed a destructive mechanism"
In the long term, the entire sector is threatened: the reputation of the appellations, the financial solidity of the cooperatives, direct and indirect jobs, and more broadly the wine heritage that shapes the landscapes of Var.
Max Bauer points to the untenable dilemma in which some winegrowers are placed, sometimes forced to sell volumes at a low price simply to maintain their rights to produce. A situation of distress that, according to him, must not be exploited.
"The distress of producers must not become an opportunity to pressure prices"
An appeal is launched for the volume regulation tools, planned for the 2026 campaign, to be effective. The objective is to avoid putting stocks sold in an emergency on the market and to prevent these desperate transactions from becoming the norm.
This requires effective controls and a commitment from the sector's players to guarantee fair remuneration for the winegrowers' work.
It is also a thinly veiled warning, which highlights a social climate that is becoming dangerously tense in the Var countryside.
"The despair of the winegrowers feeds a deep anger. And when this anger is no longer heard, it can become difficult to control"
Photo Philippe OLIVIER.