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Food

Are French Winemakers Destroying Each Other's Vines?

The usual suspects—frost, fungus, and, cold—have been ruled out, as all signs point to human saboteurs.
Photo via Flickr user tribp

Last week, Jean-Jacques Auchère awoke to a terrifying sight. A winemaker in the picturesque village of Bué, in the Loire valley in France, Auchère was devastated when he found more than 5,000 of his young vines destroyed; damage valued at about 12,000 euros.

What's worse is that the usual suspects—frost, fungus, and, cold—have been ruled out, as all signs point to human saboteurs. According to local media, vandals targeted and ripped out a hectare of young sauvignon blanc vines. This would have given investigators in this case the first clue as to motive and where it fits in the "wine war" that's brewing in the region.

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There has been mounting tension in the Loire, where AOC (appellation d'orgine contrôlée) producers feel that loosened EU regulations allowing IGP (indication géographique protégée) to grow sauvignon and pinot noir grapes has cheapened the AOC brand, especially in Sancerre. AOC producers would prefer that IGPers stick to any of 22 other grape varieties in the area, so as to protect the classics from being grown by rookies.

READ MORE: Outraged French Winemakers Plan to Disrupt the Tour de France

Not surprisingly, Auchère, the winemaker in question, is an IGP producer. This has led to grumblings of the possibility of AOC sabotage, though no evidence has been found to support this thesis. But it's not exactly a stretch either, considering that AOC producers have been quite vocal about their opposition to the IGP appellation, with hundreds of producers gathering to protest the new regulation, a tradition as quintessentially French as drinking wine.

Despite animosity in the Loire, local producers are saying that such aggressive measures are going too far. "We do not endorse these malevolent acts," Nathalie Prieur, director of the Union Viticole Sancerroise, told Decanter.com.

And speaking of malevolent acts, as the so-called wine war rages on in the Loire, a group of 30 balaclava-clad militants "ransacked" and lit fire to the offices of winemaker [Vinadeis](http:// Languedoc) in Languedoc-Rousillon. Languedoc-Rousillon is home to militant winemakers CRAV, a group notorious for occasionally employing violent tactics and attempts to thwart that other great French tradition, the Tour de France.