A ‘River’ of Wine Flooded the Streets of a Town in Portugal

The wine flowed freely in a single Portuguese city over the weekend.

Two tanks holding practically 600,000 gallons (about 2.2 million liters) of wine at a distillery collapsed on Sunday, sending a torrent of crimson wine down the streets of the small city of Levira.

One tank, open on the prime, collapsed due to a “structural failure,” stated Pedro Carvalho, the chief govt of the distillery, Destilaria Levira, within the Portuguese municipality of Anadia, about 140 miles north of Lisbon. The sheer drive of the wine knocked over one other tank, inflicting the wine from each tanks to move out of the distillery and into the streets.

The authorities are investigating the reason for the collapse, Mr. Carvalho stated.

It regarded “like a river,” stated Mr. Carvalho, who famous that there was not a powerful odor within the air afterward as a result of it was “good high quality wine.”

The spill lasted for not more than an hour, Mr. Carvalho stated, and the native volunteer hearth division helped clear up the roads. No accidents had been reported.

“We deeply remorse the incident that occurred,” the distillery stated in a put up on Fb, apologizing for any injury brought on to the city and, particularly, a house’s basement.

“We take full duty for the prices related to injury cleanup and restore,” the distillery stated. “We’re dedicated to resolving this case as quickly as doable.”

The tanks that collapsed had been a part of an effort to deal with a broader drawback: There’s an excessive amount of wine in Europe. Portugal, like different main European wine producers equivalent to France and Italy, is affected by an oversupply of wine, largely due to a decline in each consumption and exports. The tanks that collapsed had been getting used to retailer surplus wine, based on the distillery.

In June, the European Fee, the executive department of the European Union, introduced measures to assist the area’s wine producers and scale back extra provides. The measures are in place by way of Oct. 15.

Inflation is one motive for the drop in consumption, and an excellent harvest final yr and persevering with issues from the coronavirus pandemic brought on an accumulation of inventory. The European Fee estimated a drop of 34 % in wine consumption in Portugal this yr. A the identical time, manufacturing of wine in Europe has elevated.

Wine exports from the European Union have additionally declined: Within the first quarter of this yr, exports had been about 8.5 % decrease than they had been in 2022, based on the fee.

The excess particularly impacts crimson and rosé wines from areas in France, Portugal and Spain. The French authorities introduced this month that it might spend a further 200 million euros (about $214 million) to destroy tens of tens of millions of gallons of wine.