In the summer of 1907, the south of France came close to open revolt. Hundreds of thousands of winegrowers marched through the towns of the Midi, whole city councils resigned, an army regiment mutinied rather than fire on the crowd, and seven people were shot dead in the streets of Narbonne. The spark for all of it was deceptively small: a glass of fraudulent wine2.
Quick facts
- Cheap, fraudulent “sugar wine” was ruining honest growers of the Midi.
- On 9 June 1907, up to 800,000 people rallied at Montpellier.
- The 17th Infantry Regiment mutinied rather than fire on their own people.
- Parliament passed anti-fraud laws that helped define what wine legally is.
A sea of cheap wine
The roots of the crisis lay in success turned sour. After the phylloxera plague, the Midi — the vast Languedoc plain — had replanted on an industrial scale and become the wine factory of France, flooding the country with cheap red5. By the early 1900s there was simply too much wine, and prices collapsed. Then came the killer blow: fraud.
To stretch their profits, merchants pumped out huge quantities of artificial and adulterated wine — “sugar wine” made by fermenting water and sugar, and watered or doctored blends — and sold it as the real thing4. This fake wine undercut the genuine article and pushed honest growers, already reeling from low prices, toward outright ruin. In the villages of the Aude and the Hérault, families faced starvation while cellars stood unsold.
The Redeemer of the Midi
The revolt found its voice in an unlikely leader. Marcelin Albert was a café owner and small winegrower from the village of Argeliers — a lean, intense, mesmerising orator. On 11 March 1907 he led a delegation of 87 growers to lay the region’s grievances before a visiting parliamentary committee, and something caught fire6.
Week by week the demonstrations swelled, rolling from town to town — Narbonne, Béziers, Perpignan, Carcassonne, Nîmes — each larger than the last. His followers called Albert le Rédempteur, the Redeemer. Alongside him stood Ernest Ferroul, the fiery socialist mayor of Narbonne, who gave the movement organisation and political muscle. It culminated on 9 June 1907, when the Place de la Comédie in Montpellier filled with a crowd estimated at 600,000 to 800,000 — the largest demonstration France had ever seen2.
The mutiny of the 17th
Faced with a general tax strike and the mass resignation of the region’s mayors, the prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, answered with force and sent in the army3. On 19–20 June, troops opened fire on demonstrators at Narbonne, killing seven people. The Midi seethed on the edge of insurrection.
Then came the moment that passed into legend. At Béziers, the soldiers of the 17th Infantry Regiment — many of them local men — refused to march against their own families and fraternised with the crowd instead. Their mutiny electrified the country and made Clemenceau’s position untenable.
“Salute, salute to you, brave soldiers of the 17th!”— Montéhus, “Gloire au 17ème” (1907)6
| Date, 1907 | What happened |
|---|---|
| 11 March | Marcelin Albert leads 87 growers from Argeliers to petition |
| 9 June | 600,000–800,000 rally at Montpellier |
| 19–20 June | Troops fire at Narbonne; seven killed |
| 21 June | The 17th Infantry Regiment mutinies at Béziers |
| 29 June | Parliament passes anti-fraud wine laws |
Victory, betrayal and a lasting law
Overwhelmed, Clemenceau gave way. On 29 June 1907 Parliament rushed through laws against wine fraud — targeting the sugaring and adulteration that had caused the crisis — and forgave the growers three years of back taxes1. It was a real victory, and it began the long legal effort to define wine as the fermented juice of fresh grapes and nothing else.
For Marcelin Albert, though, the ending was bitter. Slipping away to Paris to plead with Clemenceau in person, he accepted money from the prime minister for his train fare home — a gesture Clemenceau promptly made public. Overnight the Redeemer was branded a dupe and a sell-out, and his movement disowned him. He died in obscurity years later, his name clouded by that single meeting6.
Why 1907 still matters
The revolt of 1907 was a turning point. The fight against fraudulent wine drove France toward the guarantees of origin and authenticity that, decades later, became the appellation d’origine contrôlée system — the model much of the wine world still follows5. And in the Languedoc it remains a founding memory: proof that the people who make wine will, when pushed far enough, take to the streets to defend it. The mutiny of the 17th is still sung about today.
Frequently asked questions
More from this day in wine history
See everything else that happened on February 29 — who was born, what was bottled, and which laws were signed.
Read more
- Aléria, 1975: a wine scandal and revolt
- How phylloxera created the AOC
- Wine and historical trade routes
References
- University of California Press E-Books — The winegrowers of the Midi and the revolt of 1907 (scholarly). publishing.cdlib.org ↩
- Vinetur — The Languedoc Winemakers’ Revolt of 1907. www.vinetur.com ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Georges Clemenceau. www.britannica.com ↩
- NorthBay biz — Wine as Protest: What the 1907 Revolt can teach us today. www.northbaybiz.com ↩
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Languedoc-Roussillon. www.britannica.com ↩
- Timeghost History — Iconic Strikes #4: The Languedoc Winegrowers’ Revolt. timeghost.tv ↩
Recommended reading
Rod Phillips
Sets the 1907 revolt in the broader story of overproduction, fraud and the rise of wine regulation.
Hugh Johnson
A rich history of wine that traces how crises like 1907 reshaped French winemaking and law.
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