Winemaker Defamation Case Goes to Appeal

And they're off. News reports filtered through this week that harvest was under way in southern France. So begins vintage 2023 – under a cloud of difficult weather (drought, hail, mildew, and more) across Europe in the last eight months. It's not over yet, either, with at least two more months of picking to go.

While you're relaxing on your sun-lounger, waiting for the grapes to approach maturity on the Côte d'Or, here are some of the headlines you might have missed this week:

Beaujolais winemaker and sexual abuse campaigner Isabelle Perraud has appealed the defamation sentence she was handed by a Bourges court two months ago (see "Riffault wins defamation case" in Winery Fire Breaks Out in South West France) for accusations leveled against high-profile, low-intervention Sancerre winemaker Sebastien Riffault.

Perraud, who runs the Instagram account Paye Ton Pinard, was found guilty of "culpable recklessness" in June after publishing accusations of sexual assault and harrassment against Riffault back in 2022, and ordered to pay fines totalling just under €30,000.

"When I published the ruling, a woman got in touch to say that she had wanted to press charges [it is unclear whether this refers to Riffault or another individual], and that when she saw this decision she said to herself '"what's the point'", Perraud told Vitisphere.com.

"To silence me is all to silence us all," she added.

However, in a Tweet dated 19 July, Perraud announced that, in the space of two weeks, three women had filed sexual assault claims against three separate winemakers in the Loire and in southern France. No further details were made public.

For his part, Riffault's lawyer, Eugène Bangoura, was belligerent.

"Clearly Madame Perraud has no existence beyond social media," he said. "She is so convinced of her vision of reality that, if the law says the remarks are defamatory and that one cannot accuse another without proof, she cannot admit it."

According to local newspaper Le Berry Républicain, Perraud's appeal was lodged on 11 July and the hearings will take place in the Bourges Appeals Court.

While no formal details and dates of an appeal hearing have been released, Riffault has yet (other than to claim "false information" and issue blanket denials) to properly address numerous reports of sexual harrassment and harrassment detailed in a major investigative report by French broadsheet, Libération, published on 6 April. The newspaper also claims two women accuse him of rape.

Libération's report also drew links between Riffault's partner, Jurate Peceliunaite, and threatening emails sent to potential witnesses in the case, reportedly attempting to stop them from testifying. According to food and wine writer Stéphane Méjanès, present at the initial Perraud-Riffault trial, a complaint pertaining to the emails was then under investigation and was not discussed at the hearing.

This news actually came out last week, but details were thin on the ground. In the last seven days, however, the story has come to light that Northern Rhône wine producer Stéphane Ogier will establish a vineyard on commune-owned land in the Côte Rôtie hub of Ampuis, on the banks of the Rhône.

The deal hit the headlines in France not only for the transformation of fallow community land into vineyard, but for the rental arrangement set up by the mayor of Ampuis: 12 bottles of wine.

"The town council agreed that, rather than have a tenant farming arrangement of €390 [$430], we could get the equivalent in bottles [of wine] in order to promote our commune's viticultural efforts and its winegrowing heritage," Richard Bonnefoux, the mayor of Ampuis, told French news channel BFM.

The first wine from the land, which has yet to be planted, is due in 2029. Until that time, Ogier, whose vineyards neighbor the plot in question, will pay the €390 annual rent to the council until the vines are in production. From then on, Ogier will rent the land for 12 bottles a year.

"Numbers-wise, if you look at it, it more-or-less comes to the same thing," said Ogier. "But symbolically, it's much nicer."

The arrangement is awaiting the official green light from administrators in Lyon.

Well known for their history of (sometimes violent) activism, ominous noises are coming from wingrowers in southern France ahead of this year's harvest. Their representative – the president of the Aude winegrowers' union, the Syndicat des Vignerons de l’Aude, Frédéric Rouanet – did not beat around the bush in talking to wine news website Vitisphere.com this week.

"If there is no financial support, there will be damage," he said. "After the harvest we're going to light fires to resolve this."

Rouanet singled out regional négociants (wineries or business which buy-in grapes or wine) as the objects of his ire.

"Négociants are playing a dangerous game, coming into wineries saying there's going to be a big harvest and prices will have to come down," he said. "We're coming out of Covid, a spring frost, drought and mildew ... psychologically, things are fragile."

Prices, he said, had to go up as wine was the only product not to have followed inflation. Meanwhile costs for winegrowers have grown, particularly in fuel/enegy prices and for labor. Dry goods, too, have risen in price, with Vitisphere also taking a moment to point out that glass bottle manufacturers have posted record profits of late.

"Things need to be shared around and the government's going to have to get more involved," Rouanet said.

While government aid via crisis distillation had eased a fraction of the pressure on producers, the subject raised a perennial sore-spot for winegrowers in the Languedoc.

"We're distilling three million hectoliters [300 million liters] but the négoce firms are no longer buying our wine but getting it from Spain. We're distilling on behalf of Spanish wines."

According to a press release from the Aude winegrowers' union, three million hectolitres represents almost half the volume of wine imported from Spain, "whose production does not have the same social, environmental and technical constraints as those imposed on French winegrowers and which are then sold in France under a brand implying the wines are produced in our country".

"This distillation," the release continued, "while essential to maintain the balance of supply and demand, would not be necessary if wine imports from Spain were banned, or least if production regulations were universal."

The south of France has not been spared the difficult 2023 season reported across France and wider Europe with, according to Rouanet, "areas which have had no rain, no growth on the coast" while to the west "there has been excess water and mildew has destroyed a large portion of the harvest".

Exports of Bierzo wines to Russia dropped significantly last year with the ongoing conflict in Ukraine cited as the factor behind the fall. Accoring to the Bierzo DO's president, Adelino Pérez, Russian exports plummeted in 2022, from 110,000 to just 30,000 bottles in the year – around 70 percent.

"Since the 2018/2019 season, the volume of exports [to Russia] was growing, in fact it was increasing by around 40 percent annually," Pérez told local news outlet, InfoBierzo.

Pérez also said neighboring countries had been impacted.

He did not, however, clarify just how the war had impacted sales. The EU and the US have imposed strict sanctions on exports to Russia, banning most luxury goods (including many wines). It is not clear whether these sanctions are behind the drop, whether exporters are cutting ties of their own accord, or whether, for as-yet unknown reasons, the Russian appetite for Mencia has dropped in the last 18 months.

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