Christian Delpeuch
Christian Delpeuch is president emeritus of the French Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB). He won support for Plan Bordeaux, an effort to save the wine industry of Bordeaux. The plan calls for growers to reduce yields, decrease total area of vineyards, divert excess wine into production of ethanol fuels and cleaning solutions, reclassify lesser vineyards as vin de pays, and start putting varietal names on wine labels. Background The wine industry of Bordeaux has been facing continuing and severe economic problems. A wine glut led to the sale of 26 million bottles of wine for conversion into industrial alcohol in 2004. This was the first time in history that AOC wines have been sold for that purpose. New World consumers tend to prefer buying wine by grape variety and also from brand name producers rather than from unknown chateaux. Domestic consumption in France continues to shrink in the face of a growing neo-prohibitionism. At the same time exports are falling in the face of growing competition from excellent wines sold at lower prices. Australia now exports more wine to Great Britain than does France and the latter's share of the U.S. market continues to drop. Many producers have