'All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.'

The wine harvest is taking place under sunny skies in France, but there is concern amongst many about the outlook for both production and demand.

According to VINIFLOR, the French wine regulatory agency, the level of wine production in France this year will be well down on last year. They are forecasting that around 43 million hectolitres will be produced, against an average annual volume of around 55 million hectolitres. White wines have been hit harder than the reds, with production down by up to 30% in some regions.

Although all regions have been affected by unseasonal weather, the worst areas are Champagne, Burgundy, and Alsace, where the wine harvest is particularly late. It has only just started in Burgundy, around a month later than last year.

White wines in particular suffered from a severe frost that occurred in the Spring, and the more humid summer weather this year has also accentuated the level of mildew disease in the plants. Both red and white vines also suffered from a mild winter, a normally dormant period vital for plant regeneration.

Clement weather during September is improving the outlook, but it has arrived too late for many growers. Nevertheless, the late summer weather is improving the level of acidity and alcohol in the grapes, with the prospect that the wines may be of good quality.

The biggest drop in production has been in ordinary table wines, where the level of care that can be doted on them is inevitably affected by the price at which they can be sold.

With the sales and prices of ordinary plonk also dropping quite severely, many European wine growers are being persuaded to give up the vineyard. Over the past three years around 35,000 hectares of vineyards have been removed in France, equivalent to around 800,000 hectolitres of wine a year.

Most of it has taken place in Languedoc-Roussillon, the largest wine growing region in France, the vast majority of which is ordinary vin de table. In the past 20 years the region has lost around half of its vineyards, and for the first time in 2007, sales from horticulture exceeded those from viticulture.

Wine growers are suffering from both a reduction in wine consumption in France and a severe decline in the export vin de table, which went down by 15% in the first half of this year.

According to UbiFrance, the French agency for international business development, the drop can be largely explained by the replacement of French table wines by those from Russia.

Nevertheless, French wine growers have the Russians to thank for the continued growth in sales of eau de vie from Cognac and Armagnac, whose sales have rocketed in recent years, with some producers simply unable to keep up with the level of demand.

Similarly, whilst wine growers in Languedoc may well be in the streets protesting about the collapse of their market, the big producers in Bordeaux and Champagne continue to be immune from a crisis that is affecting pretty much everyone else.

Once again it is buyers from Russia and Asia who are largely to thank for continued record sales of champagne and first-growth claret, whose prices continue to reach astronomical levels.