REPORTING. In Hauts-de-France, a first winegrowers’ show to show that “we make quality wine”

On Sunday, a regional winegrowers’ fair opens for the first time in Maisnil-lès-Ruitz, in Pas-de-Calais. Several farmers began to diversify their crops and chose grape varieties adapted to the region’s climate.

Hauts-de-France is a region best known for its beer, but on Sunday November 30, wine is in the spotlight. For the first time, a Hauts-de-France winegrowers’ fair is organized in Maisnil-lès-Ruitz, near Béthune, in Pas-de-Calais. While wine consumption is falling and winegrowers are suffering in the south of France, in the North, the wine industry has been structuring itself for several years. For this first show, 13 winegrowers have gathered, including those from the Saint-Paul vineyard, based in Crocy, near Villers-Cotterêts, in Aisne, who have been producing white wine for a very short time.

In the middle of the traditional crops of beet, wheat and flax, we can see three hectares of vines. “There are 27 rows of 450 meters, or approximately 12 000 feet”, planted in 2021, details Valentin Ferté. At the time, this farmer was looking to diversify his crops in the face of falling yields and prices. “The idea of ​​the vines came up during a meeting organized to propose different diversifications, he remembers. People who I found to be a bit Martian told us that in Hauts-de-France and in Aisne, we could make vines.”

He takes his two brothers-in-law into the adventure. “Both say that the vines interest them. For me, it suited me very well because I don’t have any knowledge of the grape varieties. The vine is really very technical”, believes Valentin Ferté. For this to work, you have to find the right grape varieties, adapted to Picardy. “In the south of France, it is much easier to produce organic products, he observes. In Hauts-de-France, with the climate and humidity, we always have fungi or diseases that will develop.”

The three brothers-in-law are inspired by German wine growers, where the climate is similar. “We asked them a simple question at the end of each meeting: ‘Today you have to plant, what grape variety do you use?'” They choose four, including the Souvignier gris. Three years later, the harvest made it possible to fill the first 2,000 bottles of white wine. “There, I’m going to open a bottle of the 2024 vintage Saint-Paul vineyard,” describes Bertrand Renard. This trained wine merchant is one of three brothers-in-law.

“It’s a wine that is really in tune with the times because today consumers are looking for freshness and lightness.”

Bertrand Renard, wine merchant in Hauts-de-France

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But it is a wine which has yet to assert itself on the market, hence the importance of the regional fair. “We do not have the history and reputation of regions like Burgundy or Bordeaux, he admitsso it’s important that people can say to themselves that no, it’s not just a wine for fun or to say that it’s made in the next village, that it’s not great but we’re going to please the person who made it. No, we make quality wine and we’ll show it to you.” For the 2025 vintage, the Saint-Paul vineyard hopes to release 12,000 bottles, a production which does not allow the three winegrowers to live exclusively from their white wine.