Back in June 2021 I wrote an article called Paradise Lost, about the deaths from suicide of two highly regarded winemakers in France. The article was difficult to write at the time. Both men were favourite producers of mine, and one of them I had seen not so long before it happened.

Journalist Alex Diggins got in touch with me (along with others including Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrene) earlier this year to talk about that article, and the wider crisis affecting especially French winemakers. The article he was writing has now appeared in The Observer Newspaper. It’s a very interesting article, if somewhat sad to read for anyone who has any connection with some of those individuals Alex talks about, but it also throws yet more light on the crisis facing winemakers in France, which is one of weather, bureaucracy, and economics. It is also a crisis of culture as well.

As Alex said I can share the article “far and wide”, I thought I’d put it up here for all to read.

The link is here.

I have also written about wine lovers and their expectations when visiting a producer. This article can only further reinforce my pleas to respect their time, their immense workload (and that’s just on the computer), and their diminishing production (every bottle opened to taste is a chunk of their profit). If you truly love wine, consider giving the small producers a break, much as a cellar visit no doubt enhances that passion.