French wine exporter borrows some new world tricks

A woman drinks a glass of wine in this undated file photo.

PARIS (Reuters Life!) - A small French wine exporter is seeking to raise the game for southern French regional wines by taking a page out of the new world wine marketing book.

LGI Wines in the southwestern city of Carcassonne invents catchy names, designs trendy labels and produces wines targeted at regional tastes just like competitors in Australia, New Zealand, California and Latin America.

Their wines may have names like Tortoise Creek, labels with pleasing pictures and a clear description of the grape varieties just like their new world competitors, but don't be fooled.

They're all made in the southwestern region of Languedoc-Roussillon, one of France's oldest and certainly its biggest wine-producing region, with a pedigree that stretches back to the Romans.

"There is no room for amateurs anymore," said LGI export manager Cedric Duquenoy, in a warning to the hundreds of Languedoc wine makers who still dabble in wine on top of other jobs as postmen or teachers.

Real success for the serious winemakers of this region will only come to those who listen to what the market wants, he said.

Most recently that means marketing targeted at taste rather than prestige and easy drinking wines for wine lovers rather than complicated rankings designed in the 19th century for sophisticated connoisseurs with time and money to indulge.

"It is hard for the French, it is not in our nature, but in the end you have to know what the customer wants," Duquenoy told Reuters this month.

He predicted the wine industry in France would go through a further big shakedown in the coming year with small harvests, pricing problems for supplies, tax woes and a rising euro.

"Not only are we penalized by the high euro on export markets in Britain or the United States, but the Chilean wines are arriving in markets like Germany at even sharper prices," Duquenoy added.

LGI (www.lgi-wines.com) was created a decade ago by Alain Grignon and now sells 14 million bottles a year for a turnover of some 23 million euros ($34.56 million).

The firm works with big wine sellers in export countries to establish what kind of wines they want and then goes back to the wine growers, often local cooperatives, to tell them what kind of wine to make. Most are in the 1.5-4 euro per bottle range, which for wines is just above entry-level prices.

"For Britain you need a wine which has no tannins but is fruity and a bit sweet," Duquenoy said.

He said U.S. consumers prefer a bit of oak flavor, created by ageing the wine with wood chips. Scandinavians are less interested in sweet wines, while the Chinese like bright labels where the predominant color is red, which is considered lucky.

CRUSADE

Besides Tortoise Creek, LGI also has more traditional French labels such as Lagarde, Les Marquieres, Masan, Lavilla, Chapelle du Bois and the regionally significant La Croisade.

The single-grape La Croisade wines come in Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Syrah rose.

The Croisade label carries the cross symbol of the Cathars, members of a religious sect which flourished in the 11th-13th centuries in southern France and whose heritage and symbolism are entwined with the Languedoc region.

Wines are available in cardboard cartons and in bottles with a screw cap. That's right, French wine with a screw cap.

"We are one of the rare firms using screw caps in France but the people in the Netherlands, for instance, are used to screw caps from new world wines," Duquenoy said.

The name, Croisade or crusade, actually derives from a hamlet at a crossroads near the city of Beziers -- roughly between the southwestern cities of Montpellier and Perpignan -- where one of the biggest massacres in French history took place.

The Roman Catholic Church considered the Cathars to be heretics and embarked on a crusade against them in the early 13th century. In 1209, French troops and noblemen under the command of a papal legate killed thousands of Catholic and Cathar men, women and children holding out in Beziers.

"We named the wine after the hamlet and added the cross because it is typical for this region," Duquenoy said.