Number of Winegrowers in France: 53,000 Vineyard Farms

Key figures at a glance#

Six more key figures

Question	Figure to use
How many négociant houses (wine merchants who buy grapes or wine)?	700 according to FranceAgriMer; Champagne alone has 410 houses (Comité Champagne)
How is the market structured?	No chains or franchises in wine production; 60% of winegrowers belong to a cooperative, 40% operate outside cooperatives (estate wineries and growers selling grapes to négociants)
How many estate groups?	104 parent companies control 282 businesses
How much revenue does a wine business make?	Half of the 1,003 businesses with published accounts make more than €1.5 million
Which is the largest winegrowing area?	Languedoc-Roussillon: 35,750 locations, or 30.2%
How many openings and closures in 2025?	2,929 location openings and 2,538 closures

The right answer depends on your question. To count farms, use 53,000. To count decision-makers, use the MSA's 40,721 farm operators. To count prospecting locations identified by SIRET numbers (French business location IDs), use 118,345. These numbers are not interchangeable: this study explains what each counts.

To keep the denominators separate, this study counts in three units, and each level states its own:

• farms: the 53,000 in agricultural statistics (levels 1, 3, and 5);
• businesses: 116,024 SIREN numbers (the French company ID) in the register (level 4);
• locations: 118,345 SIRET numbers in the register (levels 2, 6, and 7).

Which figure should you use for your market?#

The right denominator depends on what you sell.

Then cross-reference the channel, legal form, size, and winegrowing area. A cellar equipment supplier deals with a different buyer at a cooperative winery than at a grower's estate. The cooperative decides for dozens of members; the individual estate decides alone, and each must be approached separately.

Why winegrower counts differ by source#

Public sources do not count "winegrowers" or "vignerons" (winegrowers) one by one. They count farms, people paying social security contributions, or business registration numbers.

The sources therefore use three different units of measurement. The 2020 agricultural census counts 59,032 vineyard farms in mainland France. Agreste's enquête Structure (Farm Structure Survey) estimates about 53,000 in 2023. The MSA, the agricultural social security fund, counts 40,721 farm or business operators in winegrowing. The Sirene register counts 118,345 locations, with no size threshold.

These figures do not contradict each other. They do not count the same thing.

Chart data

Source and unit	Number
Farms growing grapes, 2020 census	70,279
Vineyard farms, 2020 census	59,032
Vineyard farms, enquête Structure 2023	53,000
Farm operators, MSA, January 1, 2025	40,721
Businesses in the Sirene register, October 1, 2026	116,024
Locations in the Sirene register, October 1, 2026	118,345

The register therefore counts about 2.2 times as many locations as agricultural statistics count farms. The gap comes mainly from sole proprietors: 84,185 in the register versus about 31,600 sole-proprietor farms in Agreste's figures, or 2.7 times as many. The two sources report almost the same number of farm companies. The register counts 9,845 EARLs (French limited-liability farm companies) versus about 9,200 in Agreste's figures, and 1,357 GAECs (French joint farming groups) versus about 1,400.

A sole proprietor registered under these codes may have stopped operating without deregistering, retired, or remained below the census thresholds. They may also cultivate only a few ares (units of land area).

For each of the 118,345 locations, we looked for visible activity beyond its code: a public or professional directory listing, or employees. 29,185 show signs of activity, or 24.7%. Among sole proprietors, the share falls to 8.9% (7,572 out of 85,071); it reaches 65.0% for companies and other legal forms (21,613 out of 33,274). Another 10,913 locations have only a recent registration, less than five years old: registration does not prove activity.

Agreste's 53,000 farms therefore fall between what is visible (29,185 locations with visible activity, a minimum) and what is registered (118,345 numbers). Sole proprietors account for the gap.

To check this classification, Scalon drew 100 locations at random and reviewed them twice, independently. The two reviews agree on all 100 and find no inconsistency between the published classification and the location's file (an upper bound of 3.7% for the inconsistency rate, with 95% confidence). Under this study's rule, 18 of the 100 show signs of activity, consistent with the 24.7% measured across the full population.

In practice: a list built on the three codes has about two rows for each farm counted by Agreste. To count farms, cite 53,000; to size a prospect list, start with 118,345 rows and remove those outside your target market.

What other sources say

• Agreste, enquête Structure 2023: about 53,000 vineyard farms in mainland France (Mémento 2025, published in thousands), including 42,491 excluding micro-farms (Chiffres et données n° 2025-11, versus 43,940 in 2020 using the same scope).
• Agreste, recensement agricole 2020: 59,032 vineyard farms in mainland France, 70,019 in 2010.
• FranceAgriMer, chiffres-clés 2024: 58,100 farms specialized in winegrowing in 2022, out of 385,520 farms, based on farm employment data.
• MSA, Chiffres utiles 2026: 40,721 farm or business operators in winegrowing as of January 1, 2025, or 10.0% of the 406,156 operators across all sectors; 41,744 one year earlier.
• Sirene register, our count: 118,345 locations and 116,024 businesses under codes 01.21Z, 11.02B, and 11.02A in mainland France as of October 1, 2026.

Revenue across the wine sector and its businesses#

The sector is substantial. Wine production was worth €11.9 billion in 2025, up 7.2%, or 12.7% of agricultural production (Insee, comptes de l'agriculture). Wine exports reached €10.5 billion (Fédération des exportateurs de vins et spiritueux). Downstream businesses, in wine trading and marketing, made €15.6 billion in 2024 (FranceAgriMer). Wine cooperatives accounted for €5.2 billion, and Champagne for €5.7 billion in 2025.

These figures describe the sector. They do not tell you how much a business on your list is worth. For that, we read published accounts.

1,003 businesses whose main activity is grape growing or wine production report revenue in published accounts for a fiscal year ending in 2024 or later. That is 3.2% of the 31,839 businesses that are not sole proprietors: civil companies almost never publish their accounts, and sole proprietors are excluded from this calculation. Revenue is for the business across all its activities, counted once per business.

Half of these businesses make more than €1.5 million per year, and a quarter more than €5.3 million. Combined revenue for the 1,003 businesses reaches €11.3 billion. These are each company's accounts: sales between companies in the same group (Les Grands Chais de France and its subsidiary Lacheteau, for example) may be counted twice.

The market is highly concentrated. 16 businesses making €100 million or more account for 54.3% of combined revenue. The top 10 account for 48.0%, the top 100 for 79.0%. At the other end, 399 businesses making less than a million euros account for just 1.2%.

Chart data

Business size	Businesses	Combined revenue (millions of euros)	Share
€100M or more	16	6,159	54.3%
€1M to €100M	588	5,050	44.5%
Less than €1M	399	133	1.2%

The top ten businesses are almost all in Champagne: nine out of ten are Champagne houses or cooperatives.

The next five

Business (registered name)	Revenue
Champagne Louis Roederer	€196M
Champagne Perrier-Jouët	€166M
Taittinger Compagnie commerciale et viticole champenoise	€164M
G.H. Mumm et Cie	€152M
Union Champagne	€149M

By business type, two categories account for almost all of the combined revenue. 258 of the 519 cooperatives publish accounts: half make more than €4.85 million, and they account for 24.4% of the total. The 705 commercial companies (SA, SAS, SARL, French corporation and limited-liability company forms) account for 72.9% of the total; half make more than €0.9 million. Farm and civil companies (EARL, SCEA, GAEC, others) publish so rarely that they contribute little to the total.

Négociants classified under wholesale trade that own vineyards are counted separately: 27 businesses, €1.47 billion, including Castel Frères (€622 million) and Gérard Bertrand (€157 million). We left them out of the calculation above because their main activity is wholesale trade rather than wine production.

In practice: if you sell to businesses with more than €5 million in revenue, published accounts show 16 above €100 million, 54 from €20 million to €100 million, and 188 from €5 million to €20 million. If you sell to estates, you will almost never see their accounts: they do not publish them.

Which NAF code applies to a winegrower?#

Insee's Sirene register classifies each business by its NAF code (the French activity classification code, also called APE code), the code of its main activity. Three codes cover grape growing and wine:

• 01.21Z, grape growing: "the production of wine grapes and table grapes in vineyards";
• 11.02B, winemaking: the production of wine;
• 11.02A, sparkling wines: mainly Champagne.

Wine itself is excluded from 01.21Z: a business whose main activity is producing wine is classified separately. As of October 1, 2026, the three codes cover 118,345 open locations in mainland France (details in level 2).

The code will change on January 1, 2027. NAF 2025 retains the title "Culture de la vigne" (grape growing) under code 01.21Y. Any future count will need to specify which version of the activity classification it uses. For a prospect list, the rule is simple: filter on the three codes, using the old or new letter depending on your extraction date.

Market terminology#

A few words appear throughout this study. Here is what they mean.

Terms, each in one line

Term	Plain definition
Vineyard farm	A farm whose output comes mainly from grape growing (at least two-thirds of standard output)
Estate winery	An estate that makes and sells its own wine, without going through a cooperative
Cooperative winery	A company formed by member winegrowers who pool their grapes and make and sell wine together
Union	A grouping of cooperative wineries
Négociant	A business that buys grapes, must, or wine to age it and sell it under its own brand
Wine house	A négociant business selling under its own brand, mainly in Champagne and Cognac
Wine marketer	A business or farm selling bottled wine, regardless of its legal status
Récoltant-manipulant (RM)	In Champagne, a grower who makes and sells their own Champagne
Récoltant-coopérateur (RC)	In Champagne, a grower who sells Champagne made by their cooperative
EARL, SCEA, GAEC	French farm company forms: limited-liability farm company, civil farming company, joint farming group
AOP, IGP	Appellation d'origine protégée (protected designation of origin), indication géographique protégée (protected geographical indication): the two wine quality designations
HVE	Haute valeur environnementale (high environmental value): a farm certification
SIRET, SIREN	A location's number, the number of the business that operates it
Independent winegrower	In market terms, an estate winery outside any cooperative, négociant house, or estate group; wine has no chains or franchises
Estate group	A parent company that controls several estates or wine houses, each run as its own business
Operator	The study's technical grouping: locations sharing a business, website, or email domain

Level 1. The universe: 349,600 farms, 53,000 vineyard farms#

The first level starts with all farms in mainland France: 349,600 in 2023. Of these, 53,000 are vineyard farms, or 15.2%. So about one in seven farms makes wine or grows grapes.

The trend is downward. The agricultural census counts 70,019 vineyard farms in 2010 and 59,032 in 2020. The enquête Structure estimates about 53,000 in 2023, or about 17,000 fewer than in 2010. The 2023 estimate comes from a sample survey, not a census.

Using a broader criterion, with no specialization threshold, 70,279 farms grew grapes in 2020. That figure includes farms with some vines alongside another type of production, such as grains or livestock. For sellers of vine plants or equipment, that broader group is sometimes the right one.

Land area gives the market's other dimension. France had 766,674 hectares of vines in 2024 according to FranceAgriMer, 773,000 according to the ministère de l'Agriculture (the French Ministry of Agriculture). Among areas in production, 404,300 hectares are under AOP, 200,300 under IGP, and 38,700 have no geographical indication. Vines for Cognac and Armagnac spirits cover 90,300 hectares.

In practice: for a supplier of products sold by the hectare (crop protection, trellising, vine plants), 766,674 hectares is the right base. For a supplier selling by the farm (insurance, advice, software), the right base is 53,000.

Level 2. Registered activity: grape growing, winemaking, sparkling wines#

The second level looks at the register, which distinguishes three activities. 116,091 locations grow grapes, 1,751 make wine, and 503 produce sparkling wines.

The register counts 114,339 grape-growing businesses. Winemaking and sparkling wine businesses are mainly wineries: of the 1,751 winemaking locations, the most common legal form is the commercial company, followed by cooperatives.

Sparkling wines are mainly a Champagne market. Of the 503 locations under code 11.02A, 391 are in Champagne. For a supplier of production equipment (riddling racks, stoppers for bottle fermentation, wire cages), the prospect list is therefore short and geographically concentrated.

The code does not tell you the actual business activity. Public listings do a better job, for the 9,386 locations that have one:

A rule for reading the data: a location classified under grape growing sometimes makes its own wine, and a location classified under winemaking sometimes grows its own grapes. The code gives the declared main activity, not the exclusive activity.

Level 3. The channel: cooperatives, estate wineries, or négociants#

The third level concerns the buyer: who turns the grapes into wine? Three channels share the market.

The cooperative. More than 35,000 farms belong to a cooperative winery, or 60% of winegrowers according to Vignerons coopérateurs de France. Vignerons coopérateurs de France counts 560 wineries and unions in 2025; the ministère de l'Agriculture review (CGAAER, December 2025) counts 550. Of these, 398 declared production in 2024, 46% of them in Occitanie. Cooperatives produce 48% of French wine excluding Cognac, generate €5.2 billion in revenue, and employ 16,900 people.

In the register, 519 businesses are cooperatives or unions, with 768 locations, or 0.6% of locations. 502 are classified under winemaking. Cooperatives are most numerous in Marne, Hérault, Gard, and Aude.

The estate winery. An estate that makes and sells wine on its own: this is the case for "vignerons indépendants" (independent winegrowers), whose trade association reports more than 7,000 members. It is a trade association and a collective trademark, not a franchise chain. In the register, these estates are spread across the three codes and sole-proprietor and company forms.

Négociants. 700 négociant houses buy grapes or wine and sell it under their brand (FranceAgriMer). Trade bodies count their houses using their own definitions (figures in level 7): those figures cannot be added to the 700.

These counts overlap and cannot be added together. According to Vignerons coopérateurs de France, the share of winegrowers using a cooperative is as follows (its own base, broader than Agreste's 53,000):

In the register, we identify at least 8,155 locations that make wine: 2,274 based on their winemaking code or cooperative status, and another 5,881 described as wineries in their public listings. This is a minimum: an estate without a listing may also make wine.

In practice: a supplier that sells to the winery (cellar equipment, bottles, lab analyses) reaches, through some 560 contacts, the wineries supporting more than 35,000 farms. A supplier that sells to the vineyard (vine plants, crop protection, equipment) goes estate by estate.

Level 4. Legal form: who signs#

The fourth level tells you who signs the purchase order. In the register, 116,024 grape-growing and wine businesses fall into nine legal forms.

Nearly three in four businesses are sole proprietors. For them, the decision-maker is the farm operator: the register gives their name, unless they have asked to limit public disclosure of their information, but does not list their age or executive role.

For a company, the register names its executives. It counts 60,330 executives in office for 28,804 grape-growing and wine businesses. Half are 55 or older, and 38.1% are 60 or older. Only 17.3% are under 40. Succession therefore concerns many estates, opening a market for banks, notaires (French legal professionals handling property and succession), succession advisers, and estate brokers.

In practice: to sell to a sole proprietor, use their mailing address and phone number; for a company, you also have an executive's name and age.

Level 5. Size: micro-farms, employers, and revenue#

The fifth level measures account size. Three angles complement each other: land area, employment, and revenue.

Land area. Of 53,000 vineyard farms, 42,491 are not micro-farms, which are defined as farms with less than €25,000 in standard output. The remaining roughly 10,500 farms are micro-farms. In the 2020 census, 43,364 vineyard farms had less than 20 hectares of total agricultural land, or 73.5%. Next came 9,811 farms with 20 to 50 hectares, 4,086 with 50 to 100 hectares, 1,527 with 100 to 200 hectares, and 244 above that.

Employment. In the register, 13,876 locations are declared employers, or 11.7% of the 118,345. The headcount bracket, however, dates from 2023: 16,631 locations had at least one employee then. The two figures cover different years. More than half of employers are EARLs or SCEAs (7,571 out of 13,876, 54.6%): 3,941 EARLs, 3,630 SCEAs, 2,527 sole proprietors, 2,239 SAs, SASs, or SARLs, 425 cooperatives, and 1,114 in other legal forms. Depending on the indicator, the employer market therefore ranges from 13,876 to 21,354 locations (declared employers or employees in 2023).

The 2023 headcount bracket is known for 17,739 locations:

Locations with 50 or more employees are rare (99): grape growing mostly employs teams of a few people.

Business size category. Among businesses classified by Insee, 3,824 are SMEs, 149 are intermediate-sized businesses, and 24 are large businesses. The others are unclassified.

Revenue. See above: half of the 1,003 businesses publishing accounts make more than €1.5 million. That is a size benchmark for businesses publishing accounts, not for individual estates.

In practice: if your offering is for employers (training, workwear, life and disability coverage, payroll software), your market has 13,876 to 21,354 locations depending on the indicator (declared employers or employees in 2023), rather than 118,345.

Level 6. Market structure: cooperatives, négociants, estate groups, and independent wineries#

Wine production has no chains, franchises, or shared trading names: none of the sources we read mentions any, and no trading name appears often enough in the register to form a network. The market is structured in another way, by three affiliations: the cooperative winery, the négociant house, and the estate group. In market terms, an independent winegrower is an estate winery outside all three networks.

These rows do not add up: cooperative members (60%) and those outside cooperatives (40%) make up 100% of winegrowers according to Vignerons coopérateurs de France; the 700 négociant houses and the 282 group businesses are counted in other units.

The cooperative carries by far the most weight (level 3). How many estate wineries remain outside every network? No national count is published, and the register does not provide one: a cooperative member has its own business in the register, just like an estate winery. The Vignerons indépendants trade association, a collective trademark rather than a network, reports more than 7,000 members.

Sharing a business is a secondary detail: 4,260 locations (3.6%) belong to one of the 1,939 businesses that operate several, detailed in the next section.

Locations grouped by business, website, or email

The grouping tool, shared across all Observatory studies, combines into one operator the locations that share a business, website, or email domain (details in the method). It counts places: 249 of the 118,345 registration numbers refer to the same place as another number, hence 118,096 locations in this table.

Operator size	Locations	Share	Operators
1 location	113,617	96.2%	113,617
2 to 9 locations	4,412	3.7%	2,039
10 to 49 locations	67	0.1%	5
50 locations or more	0	0.0%	0
Total	118,096	100.0%	115,661

The five largest operators have 67 locations in all. Vranken-Pommery has 18 (two companies in the same group combined), M. Chapoutier 15, Les Caves de la Loire 13, Taittinger 11, and the Crouseilles winery 10. Next come Vinovalie (9), Union auboise (8), Lacheteau (8), Grands Domaines du Littoral (8), and Vignerons de Tutiac (7).

Websites reveal no large hidden network. More than 120 websites or email domains group two to four businesses, most often a family, its estate, and its companies.

Parent companies trace ownership further up: 104 control 282 businesses (330 locations), and 8 control 5 or more. Only the first level was read (the direct corporate officer): tracing ownership up to the top of each group returned nothing, because the online registry queried was overloaded (45 lookups failed, no group).

In practice: outside cooperatives and wine houses, you sell to each estate, rather than to a network's head office. A campaign targeting the ten largest operators reaches fewer than 1 location in 1,000.

Estate groups and businesses with several locations#

The 1,939 businesses with several locations break down by type as follows.

Estate groups are less visible. We classify a company as a parent when the register identifies it as the only company serving as president or manager of its subsidiaries, with no individual serving as president. The top ten parent companies are listed below.

The next five

Parent company (registered name)	Businesses controlled	Locations
Société Jacques Bollinger	2	7
Laurent-Perrier	2	7
M.C. Finance	4	7
Les Vignobles Villebois	6	6
Borie Casteja Animation Participations	6	6

Large groups also appear in their publications: Lacheteau is a subsidiary of Les Grands Chais de France, which reports €1.5 billion in revenue in 2025. Grands Domaines du Littoral is 96.5% owned by Maison Pommery et associés.

Two large cooperative groups stand out: Terroirs et Vignerons de Champagne brings together nearly 6,000 winegrowers and 82 cooperatives. Vinadeis has 4,100 winegrowers and 29,000 hectares.

In practice: if you sell at group level (central purchasing, cellar equipment, software), the decision-maker is the parent company. If you sell at estate level, the register gives you the 282 businesses linked to a parent, so you can avoid approaching the same group twice.

Level 7. Where are the winegrowers?#

The seventh level focuses on geography. Grape-growing and wine locations are concentrated in a few winegrowing areas, which Scalon grouped from départements (French administrative areas).

Chart data

Winegrowing area	Locations
Languedoc-Roussillon	35,750
Champagne	25,858
Rhône Valley and Provence	14,992
Bordeaux (Gironde)	9,729
Burgundy and Beaujolais	9,683
Charentes (Cognac)	5,368
Loire Valley and Centre	5,034
Southwest	4,594
Alsace and Lorraine	4,356
Jura, Savoie, Bugey	1,789
Other départements	722
Corsica	470
Total	118,345

Trade bodies provide their own benchmarks, which count different things: Champagne reports 16,460 winegrowers, 120 cooperatives, 410 houses, and 4,100 wine marketers; Bordeaux, 4,100 winegrowers (2025); the Rhône Valley, 6,371 farms producing appellation wines (2025); Cognac, 4,252 winegrowers and grower-distillers and 251 houses; Alsace, 3,030 farms (2023); the Loire, 2,200 farms, 310 négociants, and 16 cooperative wineries; Languedoc-Roussillon, more than 14,100 farms growing grapes (2020).

Languedoc-Roussillon has the most locations, but few show visible signs of winemaking (2.7%): many deliver their grapes to the cooperative. In the Loire Valley (18.8%), Burgundy and Beaujolais (12.8%), or Alsace and Lorraine (10.5%), one in ten locations or more shows visible signs of winemaking: for a cellar equipment seller, these areas have the highest concentration of wineries.

By administrative region

Region	Locations	Share
Occitanie	38,323	32.4%
Grand Est	28,786	24.3%
Nouvelle-Aquitaine	17,363	14.7%
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur	11,328	9.6%
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes	8,854	7.5%
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté	6,842	5.8%
Centre-Val de Loire	2,215	1.9%
Pays de la Loire	2,186	1.8%
Hauts-de-France	1,471	1.2%
Corse	470	0.4%
Île-de-France	324	0.3%
Bretagne	117	0.1%
Normandie	66	0.1%
Total	118,345	100.0%

The top ten départements account for 83,237 locations, 70.3% of the total: Marne (20,841 locations), Hérault (15,229), Aude (10,050), Gironde (9,729), Gard (5,929), Var (5,076), Vaucluse (4,733), Pyrénées-Orientales (4,520), Rhône (3,631), and Aube (3,499). 7,584 communes (French municipalities) have at least one grape-growing or wine location.

The top twenty départements

Département	Locations	Share
Marne (51)	20,841	17.6%
Hérault (34)	15,229	12.9%
Aude (11)	10,050	8.5%
Gironde (33)	9,729	8.2%
Gard (30)	5,929	5.0%
Var (83)	5,076	4.3%
Vaucluse (84)	4,733	4.0%
Pyrénées-Orientales (66)	4,520	3.8%
Rhône (69)	3,631	3.1%
Aube (10)	3,499	3.0%
Charente-Maritime (17)	2,865	2.4%
Saône-et-Loire (71)	2,765	2.3%
Haut-Rhin (68)	2,626	2.2%
Charente (16)	2,503	2.1%
Côte-d'Or (21)	2,090	1.8%
Ardèche (07)	2,087	1.8%
Bas-Rhin (67)	1,592	1.3%
Drôme (26)	1,577	1.3%
Aisne (02)	1,374	1.2%
Maine-et-Loire (49)	1,333	1.1%
Top twenty départements	104,049	87.9%

Two départements show the gap between sources. In Aude, 3,992 vineyard farms were counted in 2020 versus 4,978 in 2010, or 65% of the département's farms (Agreste Occitanie); the register counts 10,050 grape-growing and wine locations there. In Gironde, 3,000 vineyard locations with employees were counted in 2024, 18% fewer than in 2019 (Agreste Nouvelle-Aquitaine, based on MSA data); the register counts 9,729 locations there. For the same département, the two sources differ in year, unit, and scope.

In practice: if you have a sales rep per winegrowing area, Champagne and Languedoc-Roussillon each justify a position, and the rest of the country can be covered in larger territories.

Specialties: Champagne, organic, appellations, Cognac#

Several wine specialties have their own market. Each specialty large enough for a separate study will be covered in a future Observatory article. Each row has its own base: the shares cannot be added together.

Champagne. Sparkling wines at level 2, industry benchmarks at level 7; the vineyard covers 34,200 hectares.

Organic. Agence Bio counts 11,609 vineyard farms that are organic or converting to organic in 2025: its scope is not quite the same as the ministry's.

Haute valeur environnementale. For suppliers of alternative crop protection products, this is the group of farms changing their practices. These two counts do not use Agreste's 53,000 farms as their base: their scope and year differ.

A changing market: openings, closures, vine removal, and age#

The mix of businesses in the market changes slowly, even as the market shrinks. Each year, the register records thousands of grape-growing and wine location openings and closures, including overseas France.

In 2025, sole proprietors accounted for 1,917 of the 2,929 location openings. Since 2019, new registrations have exceeded closures each year: the register does not reflect the decline in the number of farms.

Agricultural statistics capture the contraction better. The MSA's farm operator count fell by 1,023 in one year, or 2.5%. Vine removal accelerates the trend. For 2026, winegrowers applied to remove 27,926 hectares of vines, and 1,392 winegrowers are stopping all activity (10,342 hectares). The 2024 and 2025 plan had already led to the removal of nearly 15,600 hectares.

New businesses offer a prospecting opportunity: 7,836 grape-growing and wine locations have been created since November 2023, or 6.7% of the 116,966 open locations with a known creation date (1,379 lack one).

In practice: a winegrower list ages quickly. For an equipment supplier, the 7,836 recently opened locations are accounts buying equipment; for an estate buyer, the 1,392 winegrowers who are leaving the business entirely (2026 vine-removal applications, distinct from closures in the business register) and businesses with executives aged 60 or older represent opportunities for ownership transfers.

How do you reach winegrowers?#

Phone numbers are the most common public contact details. 16,034 of the 118,345 locations (13.5%) have a phone number on a listing we link to the register; websites and email addresses are less common (7.5% and 2.0%, respectively, of the 118,096 places grouped by the shared tool). Wineries are much easier to reach: 82.2% of the 8,155 locations with visible signs of winemaking have a phone number.

Contact coverage depends heavily on legal form.

Cooperatives and EARLs are the easiest to reach: one in two has a phone number. Sole proprietors, who make up nearly three-quarters of the register, are almost invisible: only 3.8% have a phone number on a listing.

These are minimums: matching listings to SIRET numbers is incomplete. The register itself provides no phone number or email.

In practice: a list of 118,345 rows will yield about 16,000 prospects you can contact right away. To reach the others, you need to use the address, farm operator's name, or commune.

How do you build a winegrower prospect list?#

A winegrower prospect list is built in six steps.

1. Choose the unit. Whether you count farms, businesses, or locations depends on what you sell. Insurance is sold to the farm, cellar equipment to the winery.
2. Start with the register under the three codes. Take open locations under 01.21Z, 11.02B, and 11.02A, with the old and new letter depending on your extraction date.
3. Filter out registrations with no other signs of activity, depending on your campaign. Three in four numbers (75.3%) show neither a listing nor employees; among sole proprietors, more than nine in ten. For a high-volume campaign, keep them; for a targeted campaign, remove them.
4. Link cooperatives, wine houses, and groups. You avoid approaching the same group twice, and you see who decides for members.
5. Add public contact details. Phone, website, and email from listings linked to the register, with their coverage rates.
6. Date the list. The register changes every month; a list more than six months old deserves an update.

Our prospect list guide details the method. To compare with another part of agriculture, see our count of farms.

Frequently asked questions#

How many winegrowers are there in France in 2026?#

About 53,000 vineyard farms in mainland France in 2023 according to Agreste's enquête Structure, versus 59,032 in the 2020 census. The MSA counts 40,721 winegrowing farm operators as of January 1, 2025. The business register lists 118,345 grape-growing and wine locations as of October 1, 2026.

How many cooperative wineries are there in France?#

About 560 wineries and unions according to Vignerons coopérateurs de France, 550 according to the ministère de l'Agriculture. They bring together more than 35,000 farms. The register counts 519 cooperative businesses or unions, with 768 locations.

How many Champagne houses are there?#

Champagne has 410 houses, 120 cooperatives, and 16,460 winegrowers. FranceAgriMer counts 700 négociant houses in France, using a different definition from Comité Champagne's.

How many organic winegrowers are there in France?#

12,075 vineyard farms were organic in 2024 according to the ministère de l'Agriculture, and 11,609 were organic or converting to organic in 2025 according to Agence Bio.

Why do some sources say 142,000 winegrowers?#

This figure circulates on agricultural employment websites, with no published definition. It exceeds every public count of farms (53,000 in 2023) and farm operators (40,721 in 2025): it is not a number of farms. At national level, the public count of people is the MSA's; trade bodies count their winegrowers area by area (16,460 in Champagne). For employment, FranceAgriMer counts 130,300 full-time equivalents in winegrowing in 2023.

Why does the register count twice as many as agricultural statistics?#

The register counts location numbers, with no size threshold: 118,345, versus about 53,000 farms. The gap comes mainly from sole proprietors, 84,185 in the register versus about 31,600 sole-proprietor farms in Agreste's figures: only 8.9% of their locations show signs of activity (a listing or employees). The two sources report nearly the same numbers of EARLs and GAECs.

How much revenue does a wine estate make?#

Estates rarely publish their accounts. Among the 1,003 grape-growing and wine businesses publishing revenue, half make more than €1.5 million per year. This is not the figure for an individual estate: these are mainly cooperatives, wine houses, and commercial companies.

How many independent winegrowers are there in France?#

In market terms, meaning outside cooperatives, négociants, and estate groups, no national count is published. Vignerons coopérateurs de France puts 40% of winegrowers outside cooperatives, estate wineries and growers selling grapes to négociants combined. The Vignerons indépendants trade association reports more than 7,000 members.

Which are the largest wine groups?#

By revenue, M H C S (Moët Hennessy Champagne Services, LVMH group) leads with €2,256 million, ahead of Les Grands Chais de France with €1,506 million. Among estate groups, Dionysos (Gérard Bertrand group) controls 13 businesses and 20 locations.

Which APE code applies to a winegrower in 2027?#

Today, 01.21Z for grape growing, 11.02B for winemaking, and 11.02A for sparkling wines. On January 1, 2027, 01.21Z becomes 01.21Y, with the same title, "Culture de la vigne."

Method#

Farm counts come from Agreste (recensement agricole 2020, enquête Structure 2023), Insee, the MSA, and FranceAgriMer. Location counts come from the Sirene register (October 1, 2026 snapshot) as assembled in the Scalon graph, read on November 2, 2026. Published accounts and executive records were reviewed on November 6, 2026. Agreste does not publish its list of farms (statistical confidentiality): no public file makes it possible to match them one by one with the register.

Method details and limits

Locations. The most recent record for each Sirene location that is open, has carried code 01.21Z, 11.02A, or 11.02B, and currently carries one of these three codes. Mainland France: known commune, excluding overseas départements and territories (codes 97 and 98). Code 01.21Z: 116,091 locations; winemaking (11.02B): 1,751; sparkling wines (11.02A): 503; total 118,345 locations for 116,024 businesses (SIREN). Legal-form shares refer to the 116,024 businesses, once per SIREN.

Legal forms. Current legal form of the business. Cooperative wineries: legal-form codes 6317 (agricultural cooperative company) and 6318 (union); a few other cooperatives are classified under grape growing. Comparison with Agreste: shares of legal statuses among farms specialized in winegrowing in 2023 (GraphAgri 2025) applied to the 53,000 farms, hence rounded; Agreste's "other statuses" (20.3%) mix SCEAs, commercial companies, and other legal entities.

Openings and closures. Creation date in the register and closure date of closed locations (closures file in the October 2026 snapshot), overseas France included; 2026 is not complete.

Traces outside the register and contacts. Phone by legal form: review of every linked listing (16,034 locations with a phone number). The shared tool, which keeps only the main listing for each place, counts 15,924 places with a phone number, website, or email out of 118,096 (15,804 phone numbers, 8,822 websites, 2,331 emails). For grape-growing and wine locations, open listings from other directories linked to the same location in the Scalon graph (public business listings, professional directories, websites, declared collective bargaining agreements): phone, email, website address. Each share is out of all active locations (118,096 locations grouped by the shared tool; 118,345 for shares by legal form), not only those with a listing. These are minimums: matching listings to SIRET numbers is incomplete.

Published accounts. Accounts read on November 6, 2026: businesses whose main activity is 01.21Z, 11.02A, or 11.02B, with a fiscal year ending in 2024 or later and nonzero revenue, once per business. 37 businesses in other activities and 27 négociants classified under wholesale trade were excluded. Revenue is for the business across all its activities. "Typical" values are medians; the third quartile is €5.3 million. Mostly the largest businesses publish their accounts: the figures do not describe an individual estate.

Operators and networks. Scalon's shared tool (market structure, November 2, 2026 version): an operator groups locations using the first applicable criterion: a shared website, a business grouping established in our review, a shared email domain, or a shared business. A domain is retained only if its locations are in the same commune, share an uncommon name, a verified business, or a website shared by three or more locations (email providers, directories, marketplaces, website builders, hosts, and web agencies excluded). Only one combination was made by hand: Vranken-Pommery Production and Vranken-Pommery Vignobles. The count of networks by domain is a minimum.

Estate groups. Rule: a company is another's parent when it is the sole company acting as president, manager, or partner with liability, with no individual serving as president or manager, according to the executive records reviewed on November 6, 2026. 104 parent companies control at least two businesses; at most 245 locations left on their own by the grouping by business, website, or email have a parent under this rule. Only this first level was read: the shared tool that traces ownership to the top of each group returned nothing, because the online registry was overloaded (45 lookups failed, no group).

Executives. Individuals in office in the national business register, age = 2026 minus birth year, give or take a year; sole proprietors are not included.

Winegrowing areas. The areas are an approximate grouping of départements by Scalon: a département straddling two areas is assigned to just one. Départements outside the eleven areas form "Other départements."

Visible activity. For each of the 118,345 locations: a linked listing (public listing, professional directory, website, or collective bargaining agreement) or employees (employer status, or a 2023 headcount bracket of at least one employee). 29,185 have at least one of these. A registration since October 1, 2021 is counted separately (10,913 locations with no other sign): it proves registration, not activity. Locations with visible signs of winemaking: codes 11.02A or 11.02B, cooperative or union, or public listing in the "winery" category (8,155).

Review of 100 locations. 100 locations drawn at random (seed 20261106) from the 118,345, reviewed twice, independently, by Scalon, without network access, using each location's file (register, linked listings, parent company, domains). The two reviews agree 100 times out of 100 on activity, operator, and segment, and find no inconsistency between the published classification and the file (upper bound 3.7%, 95% confidence interval). This review checks the classification's consistency, not the real activity of a location with no trace. The reviewers accepted a broader activity rule (company form, name, recent creation: 31 out of 100); under the study's rule (a listing or employees), the same sample has 18 out of 100 locations showing activity, including 1 of the 76 sole proprietors. With 100 cases, these shares are too imprecise to publish on their own: they corroborate the measurement across the full population.

Listing review (November 2 edition). 60 grape-growing locations drawn at random from those with a listing outside the register: 35 show an estate or winery, 25 remain uncertain, none has another activity. 20 were reviewed a second time with the same result 20 times out of 20.

Edition history. November 2, 2026: first edition (farms, register under code 01.21Z, market structure). November 6, 2026: market study; population expanded to the three grape-growing and wine codes for legal forms, openings, and closures (sole proprietors: 84,018 under code 01.21Z alone, 84,185 across the three codes; 2025 openings: 2,826, then 2,929); addition of activity indicators, accounts, parent companies, winegrowing areas, contacts by legal form, and the review of 100 locations. November 9, 2026: market structure read through affiliations (cooperative, négociant, estate group; no chains or franchises), no longer through shared businesses; "independent" no longer means an operator with a single location (96.2%) but an estate winery outside these networks; registered activities and sparkling wines defined by what the business does, with the code still cited.

Rounding and limits. Shares are rounded to one decimal place; their sum may differ from 100 by 0.1. Farm counts are survey-based estimates between censuses. The register counts numbers, not active farms. Contact figures are minimums.

Key takeaways#

• Mainland France had about 53,000 vineyard farms in 2023 and 40,721 farm operators; the register lists 118,345 locations, only one in four of which (24.7%) shows signs of activity.
• More than 35,000 farms use the roughly 560 cooperative wineries; at least 8,155 locations show visible signs of winemaking.
• Wine has no chains or franchises: the market is structured by cooperatives, the 700 négociant houses, and estate groups; 16 businesses account for 54.3% of published revenue.
• Public phone numbers are available for 3.8% of sole proprietors and 49.9% of EARLs: set the denominator (farms, people, businesses, or locations) before building a list.

Cite this study#

The full citation, with counts

Scalon Observatory, "Number of Winegrowers in France: 53,000 Vineyard Farms," November 9, 2026: about 53,000 vineyard farms in mainland France in 2023 (Agreste, enquête Structure), 59,032 in 2020 (agricultural census); 118,345 locations open under codes 01.21Z, 11.02B, and 11.02A in the Sirene register as of October 1, 2026, for 116,024 businesses, of which 84,185 are sole proprietors; 519 cooperatives and unions in the register, about 560 according to Vignerons coopérateurs de France; 1,003 businesses with published accounts. https://scalon.fr/en/observatory/number-of-winegrowers-in-france

Sources#

Sources and links

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• GraphAgri 2025, Exploitations agricoles, Agreste, November 2025
• Enquête sur la structure des exploitations agricoles en 2023, Agreste Chiffres et données n° 2025-11 (tableaux)
• Les chiffres-clés de la filière viti-vinicole 2024, FranceAgriMer, November 21, 2025
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