The Inquiry · BBC World Service

Is it last orders for the wine industry?

December 9, 2025·24 min·2 clips

Thousands of French winemakers protest in Béziers as falling sales and rising costs push the industry to breaking point.

November 2025 opens in southern France, with thousands of winemakers and growers marching through Béziers. One sign, shaped like a green bottle, asks for justice for wine. It is a sharp image, and not a celebratory one. The host uses the protest to get at a larger problem: falling sales, rising costs, and an industry that suddenly looks less protected by habit and history. France matters in this story because, as Jane Anson explains, it is tied to some of the world's most famous examples of pretty much every type of wine. From there, the episode pulls back. Wine is treated as a drink, but also as religion, culture, and status. Christian churches gave it ritual importance. Judaism gave wine a significant place too, while Islam is described as forbidding alcohol and leaving wine outside religious practice. Those traditions helped wine gather secular prestige. Now that prestige is bumping up against a colder reality. Health warnings are more visible. The guest suggests that the social and traditional bonds around wine may not be as sturdy as they once looked. Interest has not disappeared. Wine courses, tourism, publications, and websites still point to real curiosity around it. But consumption is still falling. Stefano Castellotta brings the cultural story back to the economics, where weaker demand puts pressure on producers. Production has declined, especially in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. In the 80s, those countries made around 80 percent of the world's wine; now it is around 60 to 65 percent. The episode leaves the question open, with wine caught between old status and a demand curve that is no longer doing producers many favors.

As heard by us

A clear BBC primer on why wine's crisis is economic, cultural, and bigger than France.

The Inquiry frames the wine industry's trouble as both an economic squeeze and a cultural reckoning. Charmaine Kosia starts in Beziers, where winemakers protest falling sales, rising costs, and a crisis that has spread beyond France.

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Why you'd press play

You want a clear map of why wine's trouble is bigger than one bad harvest.

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