Jacques Berthomeau

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Jacques Berthomeau is an influential wine consultant commissioned by the French Ministry of Agriculture to prepare a report in 2001, now known as The Berthomeau Report, to "establish the goals and means to be deployed in terms of people, regulations and finance for a winning strategy for French wine as we approach the year 2010" ^[1].

France has been rapidly losing market share in Britain the United States, Germany and many other countries, leading Berthomeau to assert that "The barbarians are at our gates! Is the flood of wines from the New World going to sink the wine industry on the Old Continent?". "We're in the process of losing the battle for new consumers," he warns. In his "scathing report, he compared France's weakening position in the global wine market with its humiliating defeat in 1415 by the English at the Battle of Agincourt"

"We should have seen this coming a while ago," said Denis Verdier, president of the Confederation of Wine Co-operatives of France. He noted that France has been resting on its laurels. This, in spite of the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, in which French experts identified a California red and a California white as superior to the French wines in the tasting. Numerous subsequent wine competitions around the world have confirmed the excellence of wines from the New World ^[2].

Berthomeau headed a committee that called for French winemakers to meet the globalization of wine by adapting to new market demands, similar to those called for in Plan Bordeaux. The Berthomeau Report, like Plan Bordeaux, has met considerable organized opposition.^[1]

Christian Delpeuch, president emeritus of Plan Bordeaux hoped to reduce production, improve quality, and sell more wine in the United States. However, two years after the beginning of the program, Mr Delpeuch^[3] resigned, "citing the failure of the French government to address properly the wine crisis in Bordeaux." Delpeuch said "I refuse to countenance this continual putting off of decisions which can only end in failure."

"Delpeuch said he was shocked and disappointed by the failure of his efforts – and by the lack of co-operation from winemakers and negociants themselves - to achieve anything concrete in terms of reforms to the Bordeaux wine industry”^[4].

The fate of The Berthomeau Report and its recommendations for change is uncertain.