European winemakers forced to shake it up

Few wine merchants saw the ominous signs when Bordeaux produced a magnificent harvest in 1995, sending the prices for some of France's most prestigious wines upward.
Surely, the famously oenophile Europeans would continue to flock to French cellars. After all, more than nine out of 10 bottles Willy Goorden sold in his shop outside Brussels at that time carried those ornate French labels.
But the excellent French vintage also held the seeds of a curse.
"When the 1995 Bordeaux came onto the market two years later, it was very expensive, often double in price. People were shocked looking at the price tag," Goorden said.
On Wednesday, the European Union executive office proposed a total overhaul of the bloated sector, which now spends more than $700 million a year just turning unsalable wine into industrial alcohol.
Colruyt wine purchaser Freddy Steens has seen the New World wines take over the under-5 euro ($7) bracket in the past dozen years to account for 90% of volume now. READ USA TODAY