Wine War in Southern France Has Streets Running Red<br />European Union labeling standards also make it easy for retailers to pass foreign products off as French — a problem<br />that plagues other European countries with their products.<br />Mr. Puech and other activists smashed thousands of bottles at retailers like Carrefour, which carried cheap Spanish wines made to look French, with pictures of chateaus<br />and lavender fields, and selling them at the same price as the competing Languedoc fare, creating sizable margins for the retailers.<br />Spanish producers also say the actions distract from graver threats to Europe’s wine industry, including Britain’s<br />decision to leave the European Union, which could slow exports to the bloc’s biggest buyer of European wines.<br />“Everything was destroyed.”<br />Mr. Vergnes was the latest target in a wine war across France’s largest winegrowing area, pitting independent<br />wine producers against imports from other European Union countries, and the businesses that deal in them.<br />“I was stupefied,” said René Vergnes, a native of Languedoc who has run the Passerieux Vergnes wine brokerage business for 35 years.
