The wine lake refers to the continuing supply surplus of wine produced in the European Union. A major contributor to that glut is the Languedoc-Roussillon, which produces over one-third of the grapes grown in France. In 2007 it was reported that for the previous several vintages, European countries had been producing 1.7 billion more bottles of wine than they sell. Hundreds of millions of bottles of wine are turned into industrial alcohol every year, a practice that is sometimes described as "emergency distillation".
One proposed remedy is Plan Bordeaux: an initiative introduced in 2005 by the French vintners association ONIVINS, designed to reduce France's wine glut and improve sales. Part of the plan is to uproot 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of the 124,000 ha (310,000 acres) of vineyards in Bordeaux.