France's wine industry is in trouble, with fewer people drinking wine and major export markets facing economic and political pressure. One wine consultant, Chinedu Rita Rosa, of Bordeaux-based Vines of Rosa, suggest some solutions for the French wine industry.
French alcohol consumption has dropped for three decades in a row. Its major export markets are contracting – China's interest in the French wines hit its high five years ago and US President Donald Trump is threatening to continue his brutal tariffs regime on French-wine imports which he started in his first term.
Already last year, wine industry monitor portal Decanter observed that French wine exports are slumping and that wine region Bordeaux is struggling.
Enter Rosa, a wine consultant from Lagos in Nigeria, who runs a high-end wine consultancy in Bordeaux.
"Will you stop focusing on China? Will you stop focusing on the US?" she asks. "All of France's marketing is concentrated on these places."
Rosa, 49, started working in the wine industry in her home city in 2008, buying a wine shop.
She moved to Bordeaux in 2015 with her French husband, creating the Bordeaux Business Network and, more importantly, 'Vines by Rosa’, a wine marketing, export and events business, of which she is the CEO.
Today, she divides her time between France and Africa, spreading her knowledge of French wines at high-end events, hosting gala dinners that are attended by France’s top diplomats and members of local groups of entrepreneurs.
Trump's tariffs
Unlike many French wine and champagne producers, Rosa is not too worried about Trump's threats of slamming 200 percent tariffs on wine and champagne products.
The first Trump administration imposed a 25 percent tariff on French wine on 18 October 2019, as part of a broader trade dispute related to subsidies for the Airbus group, a major rival to US aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
At the time, the tariffs significantly impacted French wine exports to the US, causing a substantial decline in imports, which dropped from $130 million in October 2019 to $57.1 million in November 2019.
At the end of that year, Trump threatened to impose another 100 percent, this time after the Office of the US Trade Representative published results of an investigation that concluded that France was discriminating against US tech companies.
These tariffs were never imposed. Incoming president Joe Biden cancelled Trump’s 25 percent, after which French exports grew again.
But still, the 200 percent tariffs Trump is now toying with could prove catastrophic for the French wine industry.
China's slump
And then there is China.
Its potential 1.4 billion strong market has long been a magnet for French wine makers, who went there to create joint-ventures or exported their products.
Over the decades, France became the leading supplier of wine to China. But since 2018, China's wine imports have been declining as a result of the sluggish economy, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Meanwhile, in the 2022 book Le Vin, Le Rouge, La Chine ("Wine, Red, China") by wine watcher Laurence Lemaire still counted 165 vineyards that were bought up by Chinese investors, 153 of which in the Bordeaux region alone, which shipped much of their produce back to China to high-end users happy to enjoy an imported glass of Bordeaux.
But this number is declining fast with many Chinese investors currently withdrawing from the Bordeaux region due to lack of profitability.
In December last year, the wine magazine Wein Plus reported that Chinese investors are fleeing Bordeaux, and that 50 chateaux left by them are now for sale.
Ignored
But Rosa thinks French wine exporters have to think out of the box.
It's time to find alternatives, she says, in countries such as Brazil, India and Africa.
"These are places that were ignored by the Bordeaux wines in the past. It can't be that way anymore," she says. "You have to embrace every market possible, You cannot rely on the old."
But there's work to be done. In the past, Bordeaux wines depended solely on their name, assuming that the brand "Bordeaux" would guarantee good sales.
But, according to Rosa, attitudes have changed, and the Bordelais are more engaged into marketing, and selling the brand.
But that may be not enough.
"I don't believe you can sell the product to people, just because you think you are the best," she says. She urges wine sellers who want to enter the African market to hop in a plane and travel there in person.
"You meet the people. You need to learn the taste of the people. Then you fine-tune yourself to their taste. And when you’re making wine, whether you like it or not, it will affect your decisions about how you make the wine that you want to sell there."
In her native Nigeria, she already sees that French wine is growing in popularity, even in the face of stiff competition from South African wines, and, more importantly, beer.
"Beer will always be number one in Nigeria," says Rosa. "We are in a hot climate, people want something refreshing.
"But wine is getting there, we have about 20 percent of our wine being sold in Nigeria, and every year there's an increase," she says.
