"My father and my cousin left me a legacy, and now I have to be the one to destroy it", laments Nicolas Castan, a 42-year-old winegrower based in France's Aude department. Faced with the crisis that is strangling the wine industry, hit by the vagaries of the weather and sluggish demand, the Ministry of Agriculture introduced an uprooting aid scheme in mid-October: €4,000 per uprooted hectare. More than 5,400 French winegrowers applied for the scheme, which will destroy 27,461 ha of vines across France, including almost 5,000 ha in the Aude department alone. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES