The Revolt of the Languedoc winegrowers was a peasant labor movement founded in 1907, primarily active in the Languedoc and Pyrénées-Orientales regions of France, that was repressed by the government of Georges Clemenceau. It was caused by a crisis in winemaking at the start of the 20th century. The movement was also called the "paupers revolt" of the Midi. It was marked by the fraternization of the 17th-line infantry regiment with the demonstrators in Béziers.
Languedoc vineyards before the 1907 crisis Mass viticulture
Winemaking in Languedoc and Pyrénées-Orientales developed in the 18th century with the construction of the port of Sète and completion of the Canal du Midi. Wine, for which the preservation techniques had been improved, could be transported to new markets. The vineyards were extended and on the eve of the French Revolution about half the land around Béziers was covered with vines.
In 1853 railway lines began to serve Languedoc, which opened new markets to regional viticulture, particularly in the north of the country and its industrial regions. The biggest consumers were the workers, a large part of whose salary was devoted to the purchase of wine.
The French Third Republic facilitated the massive opening of drinking places by the law of 17 July 1880. They were mainly in the working-class districts of large cities, with an average of three outlets for five buildings. As a result, the consumption of wine and other alcoholic beverages skyrocketed. The beverages sold in these places under the name of wine were extremely poor quality and were often not wine at all. The damage was such that in the 1890s an anti-alcoholic, syndicalist, and socialist labor movement was born.
A catastrophic half-century
In 1856 the Moniteur vinicole, the press organ of the Parisian wine merchants Entrepôts de Bercy, published a "Classification of viticulture departments in order of importance relative to the extent of the vineyards and the quality of the products". Except for Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne, ignorance was total. Almost all the wines of France were ignored by the Parisian trade and the large drinking places. To mitigate this lack of knowledge, Achille Larive, director of the newspaper, launches a "call to owners of unknown wines". On 10 September 1856 he published the results of his inquiry. In the next issue a reader pointed out that the wines of small proprietors were ignored.
In the second half of the 19th century, French viticulture also faced several crises due to pests of grapevines: the fungus powdery mildew, which spread around 1850 by attacking the leaves of the vine and the fruit; then the phylloxera infestation in 1863, an insect that feeds on the roots and leaves of grapevines; and finally the downy mildew towards the end of the 19th century, another fungus that attaches to the back of the leaves. It produces oily layers on the leaf surface that cause them to fall early and weaken the vine. Thanks to Bordeaux mixture, a compound of Copper(II) sulfate and slaked lime, and the introduction of American plants used as rootstocks naturally resistant to phylloxera, the vines completely recovered.
This did not end the manufacture of falsified wines. In an issue of Le Monde illustré (March 12th, 1870), an article by Leo de Bernard denounced the production and sell of adulterated wine: "petit bordeaux ... made in Bercy, where the tasting service always has its eye and nose open. The containers of this mixture, made of unknown ingredients, are confiscated and placed in a special cell. Their detention does not last long because there is no doubt of their guilt. On the day of execution, the condemned barrels are brought to the bank of the quai d'Austerlitz. A police commissioner ensures that prompt justice is done. When the signal is given the executioner of the high hygienic works opens the flanks of the victim, and from the deep wound a large black flow escapes into the Seine whose hue vaguely recalls logwood, litharge, and other harmful drugs."
While everywhere else, especially in the North-West, the area planted with vines was decreasing, it increased in the departments of Aude, Gard, Hérault, and Pyrénées-Orientales. These four provided 40% of French wine production, rising to almost 45% in the first half of the 20th century. Production in Haut Languedoc grew rapidly, particularly in the Biterrois and Béziers, self-proclaimed "World Capital of Wine". Great fortunes were made. Large landowners from industry, finance or the liberal professions had vast estates of several tens of hectares.
Tampered wines appeared on the market to cope with foreign competition. Exposed fraudsters were not punished. In 1892 the winemakers of the South demanded official suppression of sugaring and reestablishment of customs duties. But the market continued to be partly supplied by wines made from imported dried grapes, wines diluted with water, chaptalized wines and even "wines" made without grapes. However, although vintners gave great prominence to this unfair competition, it did not represent more than 5% of the market.
A demonstration was held in Montpelier on 12 December 1893 and a petition circulated that gathered thousands of signatures opposing fraud and falsified wines. The first calls for tax strikes were launched with the support of elected representatives who threatened to resign from their mandates. The radical government opposed them with the argument that the wine crisis was caused by overproduction of wine in the South.
Winemaking cooperation, symbol of the Red Midi
At the start of the 20th century the idea of a winemakers union to improve sales of Hérault wines grew in some communes of the Biterrois. The first two to set up a cooperative to sell their wines without intermediaries were Maraussan and Mudaison in 1901. The Maraussan sales cooperative was created on 23 December 1901 by 128 winemakers. The initiative proved effective and was copied by Marseillan (1903), Siran (1907) and then Marsillargues and Frontignan (1910).
In 1905 the Maraussan cooperative was the first to set up a joint wine making operation by erecting a building for that purpose. Elie Cathala, a distiller who was used to distribution channels, and Maurice Blayac, president of the agricultural and mutual credit union, were instrumental in achieving this goal. The combination of control over grape production and wine making made it possible to offer a range of wines at diverse prices according to quality.
Jean Jaurès came to salute the initiative on the spot. On 1 May 1905, during his visit to the new buildings, the socialist leader explained that the peasants had to unite instead of refusing to help each other, using this allegory: "In a vineyard, contrary and mad grapes said that they did not want to go with their brothers who let themselves be picked. They did what they wanted, and what happened was that they rotted on stump, while the others went to the vat, where they made the good wine that rejoices hearts. Peasants, do not stay away. Put together your wishes, and, in the vat of the Republic, prepare the wine of the Social Revolution!".
A large majority of the small cooperating wine growers in Languedoc and Roussillon held socialist or even communist views (pooling of production tools and profits from sales, the basic principle of cooperative cellars), thus forming a Midi Rouge (Red South of France). The majority of elected local officials from rural towns or wine-growing areas were the political representatives of the Midi Rouge and in the beginning of 20th century adopted the Occitan slogan of Jaurès: Dins la tina de la Republica, preparatz lo vin de la Revolucion Sociala! ("In the vat of the Republic, prepare the wine of the Social Revolution!").
Construction of a building dedicated to wine making in Maraussan was decided by the general assembly of 19 February 1905. Its production capacity was 2,000,000 liters and it had 29 cement tanks of 50,000 liters each for vinification and storage. The Free Winemakers of Maraussan became the symbol of wine cooperation and the hope it had aroused. The facade of the cellar was always adorned with the motto "All for everyone, everyone for all". It was inscribed on the list of historical monuments by decree of 25 May 2001.
Overproduction crisis
Algerian wine and foreign competition made the overproduction crisis worse, since Spain and Italy also had surplus wine to sell. Harvests were poor in 1902 and 1903 due to bad weather, and France produced 3,500 to 4,000 million liters. The prices of wine in these years were 16 francs, then 24 francs per hundred litres. In this context in 1903 the government allowed chaptalization of imported wines.
In 1904 and 1905, again because of the weather, harvests were abundant throughout continental Europe. The increase in production in the three main European producers was 96% in France, 48% in Spain, and 16% in Italy. The threshold for a price collapse was 5,000 million liters, and production was 6,900 million. From 1900 to 1906 the viticulture of Languedoc produced from 1,600 to 2,100 million liters. Total French production remained at a high level in the following years: 5,800 million liters in 1905, 5,200 in 1906 and 6,600 in 1907. The price of 100 litres of wine dropped to 6 or 7 francs.
Languedoc wine sales deteriorated steadily. Abundant harvests inflated stocks that were impossible to sell. Some drinking places even sold wine "by time": the customer paid a fixed price and then drank all the wine they wanted ... or that they could drink.
The wine growers reacted to the slump. A regional committee was formed for defense of the wine-growing interests of the Midi on 20 January 1905. French politicians Gaston Doumergue, deputy of Gard, and Félix Aldy, deputy of the Aude, could not make their colleagues in the Parliament to take the viticultural issue seriously, and their proposals for the defense of natural wine (in this context, meaning wine made from fresh grapes and without adulteration) were rejected by the other parliamentarians.
In 1905 a demonstration of 15,000 people was staged in Béziers. A certain Marcelin Albert then launched his "petition of 1905", which collected four hundred signatures. It read, "The undersigned have decided to pursue their just claims to the end, to go on strike against the tax, to demand the resignation of all the elected bodies and commit all the communes of the south and Algeria to follow their example with shouts of 'Long live natural wine! Down with the poisoners!.
The events of 1907
There was a crisis in 1907. The winemakers of Languedoc felt themselves increasingly threatened by wines imported from Algeria through the port of Sète and by chaptalization (adding sugar before fermentation to increase alcohol content). The country had not experienced such misery since the outbreak of phylloxera. The crisis had been building for three years. Winemakers could not sell their product, people were unemployed and there was general distress.
Wine was still needed after the phylloxera crisis. The vineyards of the Île-de-France had disappeared but southern vineyards could replace them thanks to the railways. There was no hesitation over adulterating the wine. The state favored importing Algerian wines, which were mixed with poor quality wines of metropolitan France. This practice created a glut of wine that caused the slump in the Languedoc-Roussillon viticulture. Apart from its role as a distribution center, the port of Sète acted as a catalyst for the crisis. Its presence at the center of a large production area created the risk of overproduction by encouraging use of aramon grapes and large vineyards. This created volume. The need to cut these wines to increase strength caused increased demand for Algerian wines, whose production rose from 500,000,000 liters in 1900 to 800,000,000 in 1904.