Cognac crisis: can hemp replace vines in Charente?

No, hemp will not replace vines in Charente, but it can help some farms diversify. The cognac industry wants to uproot 12,000 to 13,000 hectares of vines; hemp occupies 45 hectares in Charente in 2026. It is a rotation crop with modest margins, whose local industry is just beginning to take shape. CBD flower, meanwhile, is legal but remains a direct-sales niche.

In October 2026, Les Échos reported on "the first wave of liquidations" looming in Cognac. What should be done with the vines that are being uprooted? Here is what the public figures say, without sugarcoating or sensationalizing.

2026 cognac crisis: where does the industry stand?

In 2025, the industry shipped 141 million bottles for €2.24 billion in revenue, according to the key figures from the BNIC, the interprofessional organization. The causes: US customs duties, Chinese surtaxes on eaux-de-vie, and a general decline in alcohol consumption.

Difficulties are now reaching the courts. On July 6, 2026, the Saintes commercial court placed the Moisans distillery in Sireuil under court-ordered reorganization, presented by Vitisphere as the first négociant hit by the crisis (€22 million in liabilities). At the same court, the liabilities of collective proceedings more than doubled in 2025, to €73.7 million, a jump that its president links to viticulture (Sud Ouest, May 11, 2026). A reorganization is not a liquidation: as of the date of this article, no liquidation of a cognac house or a winegrower is confirmed in public sources.

Real estate follows: according to the Safer, cited by Sud Ouest, the hectare of cognac vines sold on average for €25,600 in Charente in 2025 (-52%) and €20,900 in Charente-Maritime (-57%).

Uprooting premium for vines in Cognac: what exists

• Permanent uprooting: €10,000/ha. The national premium from FranceAgriMer (€4,000) is supplemented by an industry premium of €6,000, reserved for cognac grape varieties (BNIC statement, January 21, 2026). Few farmers have signed up: less than 600 ha planned by the end of 2026.
• Temporary uprooting: €4,500/ha, paid in two installments over five years. The winegrower retains the right to replant with cognac vines, or receives an additional €1,500 if they switch to permanent. The industry's goal: 12,000 to 13,000 ha over several years, nearly 15% of the appellation (AFP, May 2026).

For those who give up replanting vines (at least 3 ha uprooted), the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region also finances 40% of reorientation investments, 60% for organic, with a possible filing until December 31, 2026 (aid for the reorientation of wine farms).

Hemp cultivation in Charente: where does the industry stand?

It is starting. Supported by the Department since late 2023 and driven by Charente Eaux, the industry counts 45 ha in 2026, distributed among nine farmers of the Chanvre 16 collective. A defibring line, already ordered, will be installed in Nonac, in the south of the department, for the first half of 2027: a €740,000 project subsidized notably by the water agencies and the Region (Charente Libre, June 2026). An oil mill is planned in Chalais for organic seeds, and the industry aims for 150 ha in 2031.

In Charente-Maritime, the Vals de Saintonge project is preparing a defibring unit in Saint-Julien-de-l'Escap (€7.5 million). The first trials were sown in April 2026 on 16 ha (Sud Ouest, April 22, 2026); the harvest report was not published in mid-October. The France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine report below presents this project.

These projects target straw and seed (building, oil, flour), not CBD flower like those in our selection of CBD flowers, which falls under a different industry.

Why hemp cannot replace vines

For three reasons: scale, rotation, and outlets.

• Scale. The 45 ha of Charente hemp represent about 0.4% of the areas the cognac industry wants to uproot; the 150 ha targeted in 2031, a little over 1%. In Charente-Maritime, the future factory will need "500 hectares in production, which means 3,500 hectares since we are talking about seven-year rotations," according to the vice-president of the Charente-Maritime Deux-Sèvres Chamber of Agriculture (Sud Ouest, January 2026).
• Rotation. Hemp does not return to the same plot every 5 to 7 years: it is a rotation crop, not a perennial crop. In Gironde, the Chamber of Agriculture advises former winegrowers to get into it "by starting small, around one hectare" (Vitisphere, September 9, 2026).
• Outlets. Industrial hemp is sold under contract to a nearby processor. However, the seven French hemp companies identified in 2024 are all in the northern half of the country (FranceAgriMer: without the factories planned in Charente and Charente-Maritime, there is no industry.

Hemp cultivation: what is the profitability per hectare?

Modest in large-scale farming. "On average over several years, we are closer to a margin equivalent to a legume," summarizes the director of the InterChanvre interprofessional organization in La France Agricole: less than a cereal.

The €3,000/ha assumes a processing and direct sales workshop: another business. And the beginnings are fragile: in Gironde, a winegrower who had sown too much table surface in 2026 on "not even a quarter of the expected harvest," far from the approximately three tons of straw per hectare needed to cover costs according to the Chamber of Agriculture (Vitisphere).

And CBD flower? Legal, but a niche

Growing hemp for its flowers is legal, within a strict framework: varieties listed in the catalog, certified seeds, 0.3% THC at most (decree of December 30, 2021). The Conseil d'État canceled on December 29, 2022, the ban on selling raw flowers (decision n° 444887). Everything is detailed in our guide growing hemp and CBD in France and in the CBD law in France in 2026. The 25.7% excise tax on flowers planned by the 2026 budget draft (article 23) does not appear in the finance law promulgated on February 19, 2026; the subject may return during the next budget debates.

But it is a small-area crop, labor-intensive, on a market without official statistics: FranceAgriMer does not track CBD shops or online sales, and the Confédération paysanne estimates that 80 to 85% of the CBD consumed in France is imported. In the Royanne country, a producer cited by Sud Ouest cultivates a thousand plants on less than one hectare and sells his production himself (June 2025).

The myth of "€100,000 per hectare"

Some merchant sites promise up to €100,000 per hectare by multiplying a retail price per gram by a theoretical yield. This forgets labor, analysis, packaging, and especially sales: the price paid to the producer is not the price in the window.

From cognac to hemp: why this topic concerns us

Cloud Store CBD was born from this crisis. Jules Revel, one of the two founders, is the son of a family of Charente wine farmers. When the cognac industry faltered under US taxes, his family looked for another crop for its land, and ended up selling off part of it. As we tell it on our page Our story: "The idea was born with the cognac crisis while looking to diversify."

Our project of growing hemp in aquaponics in Charente is still ongoing, with a target start in 2027 (the principle is explained in Organic CBD and aquaponics). It is our path, on a small scale, not a model for a wine farm. And let's be clear: our flowers are not grown in Charente today. We select them from partner producers, all under 0.3% THC, without synthetic cannabinoids, and present them variety by variety in our CBD flower catalog.

Winegrower: where to start if hemp interests you?

1. Check the framework of your uprooting with the BNIC before sowing.
2. Contact the local industry: Chanvre 16 and Charente Eaux, the Vals de Saintonge project, or the Chanvre Nouvelle-Aquitaine association.
3. Ensure an outlet under contract before sowing.
4. Have the soil analyzed: pH, copper, and heavy metals.
5. Start small, around one hectare, avoiding overly superficial sowing, which did poorly in Gironde in 2026. The coupled PAC aid for hemp requires certified seeds.

FAQ: hemp, vines, and the cognac crisis