How winegrowers are increasingly using logistics platforms to store their wine bottles

L'immense site de 3S, à Villeveyrac, destiné au conditionnement mais aussi au stockage de bouteilles de vin. Entre 4 et 5 millions de cols y sont entreposés dans des conditions adaptées.

Highly developed in Bordeaux and Burgundy, this solution is starting to take shape in the Languedoc region. Explanations.

At the gates of Villeveyrac, in the centre of Hérault, the long site is impressive: more than 21,000 m2 of covered surface area. Within it, more than half, approximately 13,000 m2, is used to store bottles of wine from multiple wine estates, which extend from the lower Rhône Valley to the Pyrénées-Orientales.

It was there, in the heart of the Languedoc wine region, that the family group Packing, based in Burgundy, invested in 1998 to create one of the most impressive logistics sites in the region. Objective: “to offer technical services to winegrowers in areas for which they are not equipped”, as explained by Jean-Christophe Peyre, the site director.

“Languedoc is very behind”

While the 3S site is developing a large part dedicated to bottling, it is mainly on storage that it is banking above all. “For the past ten years, this has taken on an increasingly large scale “important”, he adds. So much so that more than 5,000 m² of additional storage was added a few years ago.

"Languedoc is very behind the Bordeaux or Burgundy terroir, explains Matthieu Rollin, who created, with Nicolas Seffusatti, the Cassagne et Vitailles estate, in Montpeyroux, in the center of Hérault. The rise in the range of Languedoc wines will require this type of structure, which allows for optimal conservation of fine and quality wines. ” To meet this challenge, the two young winegrowers supported the creation of a dedicated warehouse near Clermont-l’Hérault.

A new 2,000 m&sup2 site in Clermont-l’Hérault

The latter, with a surface area of ​​2,000 m² will be operational next November. It will be managed by Sandrine Aubert, a former employee of Atler’Ego, one of the specialized players, based in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, near Montpellier. “The future site will have a storage capacity of 2 million bottles, she explains. We work with winegrowers who do not have cellars large enough to store their wine”. For comparison, the storage capacity of the 3S site is 4 to 5 million bottles.

“Our wine region has developed thanks to an increasingly large volume of wine bottles as well as thanks to new estates and a real move upmarket. We need to provide them with solutions in terms of storage and conservation”, explains Sandrine Aubert. Especially since the platforms offer other services, such as grouping and sending orders for the benefit of their customers.

“Storage is the future of Languedoc”

“In recent years, we have seen the emergence of logistics tools that allow economies of scale, notes Jean-Marie Fabre, a winemaker in Fitou, in the Aude, and president of the Vignerons indépendants de France. This offers two advantages: it frees up the immobilization of bottles in the estates and frees up employees".

While he estimates that "a small 5% to 6% %" the number of winegrowers who are now turning to these logistics platforms, he recognizes that "more and more estates are interested in them, because they are becoming a complementary solution". Figure of the AOC Coteaux du Languedoc, Jean-Philippe Granier is formal: “storage is the future of Languedoc ; it allows the terroir wine to be revealed”.

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