A new co-operative society adds spice

Life has been tough for France's wine co-operatives recently but a dozen of them have decided that safety lies in numbers. The 12 caves co-opératives listed below are now members of Marques et Co-op, a grouping of large producers from all over France designed to pool resources both technical and marketing. They are all committed to producing some seriously interesting, high-quality wines as well as the much more ordinary stuff with which co-ops have traditionally been associated. 

In all they have 4,000 members, access to 30,000 ha (74,000 acres) of vines and make the equivalent...