The Need for a Marketing Reform: The Wines of the Loire Region

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on how the French wine industry and, in particular, the wine-producing Loire region in France is affected by global and domestic factors. An overview of some of the vast regulations prevailing in the French wine industry that prohibit the wine producers to compete efficiently, especially with the wines from the “new world,” is provided. A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis is used as the tool to study the competitiveness of the French wine industry in general and the Loire region in particular. The French wine industry is too fragmented and subjected to too many controls and, as a result thereof, is not flexible enough to respond to market opportunities. French wines have the unique blend of “historical intangibles” of romance and mystery that have been part and parcel of wine for many centuries. This advantage is no longer a major competitive advantage, and the time has come to make decisions on which of the vast range of regulations are worthwhile to maintain to contribute positively to the best interests of the French wine industry.