Production costs of AOC Burgundy wines [Les coûts de production de vins d'AOC en Bourgogne]

The characteristics of the production process of wine in Burgundy are the small size of the viticultural holdings and the fact that each vine-grower cultivates several patches in different villages, which permits them to produce wines belonging to one of the four hierarchical levels in the "guaranteed vintage" system (AOC). Such an organization incites to define the concept of "vintage portfolio" associated with each viticultural holding. The aim of our paper is to verify if the behaviour of the vine- growers leads them to have production costs (here the cost of grapes) that depend on the one hand on their vintage portfolio and on the other hand on their stategy. Concerning this last element, we distinguish the technical aspects measured by the average yield of patches and the commercial aspects apprehended by the engagement of the vine-grovers in the direct sale of wine in bottles from the domain.Some explorative results are obtained by using a survey data issued from 30 domains for 1994. These results corroborate the above hypothesis but reveal a strong heterogeneity of behaviours that have to be precised and specified by exploiting a second survey in a new production area in Burgundy.