Posted on 11/27/2006 11:34:11 PM PST by MadIvan
Where'd you get the 10% figure? I would think it would be higher than that by a country mile - more like 60%.
That's because they're not arrogant.
French luxury goods have become hard to find, not that I'm looking. I wouldn't buy anything from France, nor apparently are very many others buying anything from France. French perfume and cheese are almost non-existent. American retailers aren't going to stock stuff that the customer won't buy.
So long, froggies! :>
>>I wonder if the American boycott has something to do with this as well?
I wandered through Costco yesterday, and they had some really inexpensive French wines, much cheaper than I remember them ever being.
I didn't buy any.
Then they need to quit electing anti-American hatemongering snobs like Jacqie boy and Dominique.
Yes, and the Aussies as well.
So most of ant-French sentiment are from Americans who would never drink wine that much in the first place.
I believe you are correct BUt if you look at Bahrain you will find the hypocracy of the Muslims. They go there and the ladies immediately take off their tents when they get off planes exposing miniskirts and they gamble and dance at nightclube AND they drink.
Soot of like the decadent west.
Marketing along with high prices hurt.
I also had a service company that delt with grocery stores and would ask wine merchants if they'd noticed a turndown in sales of french wines and to a one they all said definately after 9-11 and the Iraq invasion. To a one they all said quite a large percentage drop.
It's really just a matter of boredom with the French product. There's just nothing new in French wines. All the fun stuff is happening in Australia / New Zealand, South America, Africa, Spain, even still in California and the Pacific Northwest. Why buy a cheap, bland Beaujolais when you can buy a dozen different wines and unlimited numbers of blends from elsewhere?
Mooslims don't drink wine?
That and this was a big part:
Louis-Fabrice Latour, who heads the Louis Latour label in Burgundy, admitted a feeling of superiority had made them slow to react. "In France, we used to think we were the biggest and best and no-one could touch us," he said.
The one thing French wine used to have over other bottles was mystique; there was a whole mythology and romanticism practically revolving around French wine.
How does a product get mystique and how does a product get mystique back once lost?
What the American boycott did was cause a large number of people in a short period of time to "look behind the curtain." When they did so and found that French wine, although usually quite good, was no more mysterious or romantic than wine from Chile, Australia and so on, the bubble burst and it's impossible to put it back together again.
In other words, once French wine lost that emotional connection with consumers (for lack of a better way to explain it), it was just another bottle among many to be chosen.
Stupid. Stop distilling perfectly good wine, and ship it (C.O.D) to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port instead. That'll turn the situation around right quick!
Yep, we too started boycotting then and it just became a way of life.
I've had many fine camemberts and bries since then that were not French.
Maybe there are more Muslims in europe than they thought. They, after all, don't drink alcohol.
I agree with you, but regular people always take the consequences of the actions of their governments.
Perhaps the growing French Muslim population (all of Europe for that matter) might be a new market? Oops. They don't drink!
I noticed that shortly after the boycott even Trader Joe's suddenly started loading up on New World vintages and foregoing the French. Haven't checked lately, though. But it was quite obvious at the time that they knew where consumers were going with this.
Obviously they are drinking more Coca Cola....dang the Americans.
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