It is difficult to overestimate the economic and social importance of the vine in French history. In 1865 winemaking was one of France's flourishing industries, producing seventy million hl (hectoliters) of wine worth one and a half billion francs. Between 1882 and 1892 the annual value of all plant production fell from 9.149 to 7.865 billion francs. A large part of this drop in production was due to the general fall in prices during “the agricultural crisis”, part of the Great Depression of 1873-96. A wine industry weakened by vine diseases must also be taken into account.

Figures for Bordeaux indicate the damage done to wine production by several devastating diseases. Between 1840 and 1849 the average annual production of the vins du Bordelais was 1,646,000 hl; in the 1850s it dropped to 1,183,000 hl. By the early 1870s (1869-75), vats were overflowing, with an annual average production of between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 hl. In 1875 over 5,000,000 hl were produced; this figure was not surpassed until 1900, when the production of nearly 5,750,000 hl of bordeaux established a record unbroken until 1922, a year producing over 7,000,000 hl. But between 1876 and 1885, phylloxera reduced production to an average annual figure of 1,774,000 hl. It was not until 1891 that production climbed back to nearly 2,500,000 hl, reaching nearly 5,000,000 hl in 1893 (for national figures see Figures ia and ib).