You may have heard the term fermage mentioned when talking to local vignerons. What is fermage and what’s the difference between fermage and métayage (a term you may be less familiar with)?
Growers don’t necessarily own all the land they work themselves. Sometimes they rent it off the owner.
A typical case might be when someone inherits a large house with a working vineyard. The inheritor doesn’t want to work the vineyard him or herself but he or she would like it to continue as a working vineyard.
In this case they can lease out the vineyard to a local grower over a fixed period of time with rent agreed when the contract is signed. Contracts are normally quite long (10-25 years).
So what’s the difference between that and métayage?
Well, métayage is another form of agricultural lease but in this situation, the leaseholder gives the vigneron the right to farm the land in return for a proportion of the harvest.
The word métayage originates from the French word moitié (which means half). In the past half of the harvest was given back to the owner of the land.
The amount given back differed according to the traditions of the time and these days the law limites the amount taken back to no more than one third.
Today, typically the vigneron would pay the leaseholder in money after selling the wine coming from the harvest (but not always). The leaseholder is therefore subjected to the risks of farming unlike in fermage
Métayage has practically disappeared in the 21st century (although we know of one or two vignerons who farm parcels under this kind of contract), and growers have the right to transfer a métayage contract into a fermage one after three years (the land owner can’t oppose this).
Fermage has a minimum duration of 9 years with an automatic right of renewel (unless the owner wants to farm it him or herself or the contract has been broken in some way). If a long term lease of 25 years has been agreed at the start then this is not renewable, so easier for the landowner to regain control of his or her land.
Fermage remains very common here in the Loire valley. Lots of growers own some land and lease other parcels.
