AS FRANCE recoiled before the advance of globalisation and of English as a lingua franca, there was one area in which it remained confident of its superiority: its wines.

Now even the vintners’ traditions are going the way of the five-course lunch, the Deux Chevaux and the surly waiter.

After failing to hold off the onslaught from New World winemakers, France is to join them in such heresies as adding wood chips and — perhaps — even watering down the wine. The Agriculture Minister has issued a plan to let vignerons compete with growers in the Antipodes and the Americas whose simple flavours and clever marketing have been winning the world’s wine drinkers.

“We have to make wine for consumers, not wine that producers dream of,” said Bernard Pomel, author of the plan, which is likely to be adopted soon as law.

France still dominates the wine trade, with 40 per cent of world production by value, but its share of the market has been dwindling for a decade. Brussels is even about to allow France to turn thousands of barrels of unsold bordeaux into vinegar.

The ministry is responding with a £50 million rescue package for the industry and a call for a “new wine revolution” to do away with “elitist language” and dozens of categories that turn shoppers off French wine.

New World techniques, with their varied labels and strong flavours, should be encouraged in a country where winemaking is governed by volumes of century-old rules, the ministry says. Among these is the addition of wood shavings into steel wine vats to accelerate maturity and add aromas that are woody with vanilla overtones. The practice cuts out the need for long and expensive storage in oak casks.

To accommodate the trend for lower-alcohol wines, growers will also be allowed to reduce alcohol content by 2 per cent of volume. This raises the prospect of watering down, a practice traditionally associated with fraud. The addition of water has become accepted in California and elsewhere because the fashion for strong flavour leads to wine with excessive alcohol levels.

The plan was generally welcomed by the industry. Christian Paly, president of the national association of producers of appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) wines, said: “I say ‘yes’ to wood shavings for all except the AOC wines who want to do without it.”

With the exception of the high-quality labels of Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne, Gallic wine producers have been in serious trouble for years.

Roland Feredj, director of the CIVB Bordeaux wine council, called the government plan a remarkable and realistic advance. “It is practically miraculous. In general, France always wants to give lessons to the rest of the world. In winemaking, we are realising that the Australians and the Americans also have things to teach us.”

Purists, however, drew the line at wood shavings. Michel-Laurent Pinat, director of the French Bottlers and Distributors’ Association, supposed that the fast woody flavouring was acceptable for “the Coca-Cola and ketchup generation”.

François Roncin, of the Institut National des Appellations d’Origine, said that the shavings made wine that was “banal and low price” and which did not age well. “The aroma is never as subtle as ageing in oak casks.”

Among the other measures, the ministry wants to simplify France’s confusing array of categories, eliminating all but AOC, vin de pays and vin de table, the most ordinary quality. Grape varieties are to be identified and all labels will bear a new “vins de France” logo. The two main growing regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy are to be encouraged to produce more vins de pays, the less complicated and inexpensive wines that compare with the New World’s mass products.

The French marketing system, fragmented through co-operatives and small family vineyards, must also be rationalised, the report said.

“The supply from the New World countries is simple, clear and perfectily comprehensible,” the plan says. France must adopt a similar approach to make the world adore its “exceptional products”.

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