Vine Pull Schemes

vine pull schemes, have been instituted in various parts of the world at different times, generally in response to a perceived wine surplus.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, smallholders in the south of France and Italy in particular took advantage of substantial financial inducements to abandon viticulture on all or part of their land in an effort to drain the European wine lake. About 300,000 ha/741,000 acres of French vineyard and about 400,000 ha of Italian vineyard were ripped out between the late 1970s and 1991. France’s total vineyard was reduced by a further 80,000 ha and Italy’s by about 150,000 ha between 1991 and 1996, while a further 284,000 ha were ripped out in Spain and 126,000 ha in Portugal. In the following decade, the uptake was greatly reduced, with just 30,000 ha grubbed up, mainly in France.