"In the French Culture, a glass bottle with a natural cork is engraved in our genes" says Pascal Fernandez, a wine grower in the Languedoc region of France. "Plastic bottles are difficult for me". And this being said because one of the top clients for the Pepiex Coopeerative, Hugh Kevin & Robert are forcing the growers and wine producers of the region to bottle 75,000 bottles of wine for Asda. And this should be no surprise, Asda is a subsidary of ....WalMart!
Pascal and the other sixteen members of the cooperative gathered at Les Celliers Jean d'Alibert and said that they must overcome cultural taboos and adapt to new consumer demands if they are to survive. "We've had a crisis for the last seven years, prices dropped every year until they hit 2004 prices. It is a little better now but I do not know how long it will last", Pascal says. 
Many growers in his region have given up on growing wine grapes with over 37,000 acres of vines being torn up. It appears that throughout France long time wine grape families are encourage their children not to follow in their footsteps. "A lot of wine trade is a one-night stand relationship" Said Robert Joseph. "We are trying to create an enduring relationship - consumer to distributor to producer to growers. We are in the most brutally capitalistic part of the wine business. We never own the wine," he says.
By the way, the cost of the plastic bottle to the producers? Exactly the same as the glass bottles, absolutely no savings to them at all.
