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Marquis Nicolò Incisa della Rochetta has no gripe with the look of the wine bottle with the 1995 Sassicaia label that sits on his file cabinet. Nor does he mind how it tastes. The problem is, he didn't produce it. Unlike authentic Sassicaia, the bottle doesn't come from vineyards on the Marquis's family estate on a hillside along the Tuscan coast. Instead, it was snagged with 20,000 other counterfeit bottles in a raid by Italian government inspectors. Real: A bottle of 1995 Sassicaia from Italy, which costs up to $640. Sassicaia is one of a number of top wine makers...

BORDEAUX, Burgundy… Xinjiang. The world's wine map may have to be significantly re-drawn with figures showing more than a glass is being raised to China. Such is the pace of wine consumption in China that last year the country produced more than 700 million bottles with new statistics showing that production will outstrip Australia's by 2009. Supermarket chain Morrisons has already added two wines ADVERTISEMENT from the north-west of China to its portfolio, while London fine wine merchants Berry Brothers & Rudd (BBR) has predicted that, by 2058, China will have all the essential ingredients to make fine wine to...

Wine producers must "let greatness happen."It's time to stop relying on science if you want to make great pinot noir. That's the message that Wine Spectator columnist Matt Kramer gave to delegates at the Pinot Noir 2013 wine conference in Wellington, New Zealand, on Monday. Kramer controversially declared that truly great pinot noir is currently produced only in Burgundy. “Burgundy has something that no other pinot region has achieved," he said. "In Burgundy, two plus two equals five. How did they get that other one? How did they find it? “The challenge is not to get two and two equals...

Washington D.C., Mar 21, 2014 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The life of Dr. Jérôme Lejeune, a French researcher who discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome, is an example of faith, respect for the dignity of all human life, and search for truth in science, say those who work to spread his legacy. "The example of Jerome Lejeune is a man who serves as a witness in contemporary time for challenges that we all face," said Mark Bradford, president of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation USA, in a March 18 interview with CNA. As he has learned more about Lejeune,...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: New French satellite images show possible debris from a missing Malaysian airliner deep in the southern Indian Ocean, Malaysia said on Sunday, adding to growing signs that the plane may have gone down in remote seas off Australia. The latest lead comes as the international search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace of the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 people on board. "This morning, Malaysia received new satellite images from the French authorities showing potential objects in the vicinity of the southern corridor," the Malaysian Transport Ministry said...

France’s far-right National Front party (FN) hailed an “exceptional” showing in the first round of the country’s local elections Sunday, after winning historic levels of support in a number of towns and cities. Early estimates showed FN candidates leading in the eastern town of Forbach and the southern towns of Fréjus, Avignon, Perpignan, Villeneuve-sur-Lot and Beziers, putting the party in pole position for the second round of voting on March 30th. The news was even better for the FN in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, where the party’s candidate Steeve Briois took a majority of the vote at 50.26 percent,...

resident Barack Obama flies Sunday to a Europe shaken by Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea and his threats against eastern parts of Ukraine. At a summit conference at The Hague on preventing nuclear terrorism – scheduled long before the Ukraine crisis – Obama will confer with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders. On Monday afternoon Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping of China, Russia’s neighbor and sometime rival. Putin has forced the United States and Europe to refocus on the origins of the modern transatlantic alliance -- the 1949 NATO defense partnership designed to prevent a Russian invasion...

In light of this story, it should come as no surprise that two thirds of French Jews are considering leaving. Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry presented its findings to the Knesset this week that more than two thirds of French Jews are considering leaving the country. The findings were presented in the context of an Israeli government effort to increase immigration from France; however they raise serious concerns that a prolonged exposure to increasingly virulent forms of anti-Semitism are taking their toll on the sense of security felt by Jewish communities in France and across Europe. ... Of the...

BRUSSELS — Most French Jewish parents enroll their children in private schools because of anti-Semitism, a leader of France’s Jewish community said. Anti-Semitism “affects Jewish families very seriously and is the main reason there are so few Jewish children in public schools,” Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said Tuesday during a symposium on anti-Semitism at the European Parliament. “Most of them go to Jewish or Christian private schools.” Cukierman spoke at a symposium organized by the European Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith International with European lawmakers on the findings of a recent survey...

Teacher tells police 3 men cursed him in Arabic before the assualt; French vigilant group against anti-Semitsm reports incident. A Jewish teacher from Paris told police that three men had assaulted and cursed him in Arabic before drawing a swastika on his chest. The attack occurred on Thursday night, according to a report by the Drancy-based Bureau for National Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, a watchdog group known as BNVCA. “They pressed him to the wall and hit his face, around the eyes and on his chest,” the report said. The blows broke his nose and deformed it, according to the report....

Watchdogs from several European countries have noticed no indication of a massive build-up of Russian military that would threaten the security of neighboring states, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Sunday. According to Mr. Antonov, as many as seven inspection groups paid visits to Russian border territories over the past month. “Our facilities and deployment areas along the Russian-Ukrainian border were twice checked by the Ukrainian military,” he noted.Monitors from the US, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland scrutinized Russia’s military camps stationed on its borders with neighboring nations. “It must have been a simple...

Participants, spectators and critics produced scores of historical documents during the French Revolution.   These items are now available in the French Revolution Digital Archive, a digital collection recently released by Stanford Libraries.   FRDA brings together two foundational sources for French Revolution research: the Archives parlementaires, a day-to-day record of parliamentary debates and discussions held between 1789 and 1794, and Images de la Révolution française, a vast visual corpus from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.  The archive was a multiyear endeavor and was developed in response to expressed need by scholars for improved access to their sources, according to...

Back in 2010, I shared a video that predicted a catastrophic end to the welfare state. I said it was an example of “Libertarian Porn” because: …it is designed for the dark enjoyment of people who think the government is destroying the nation. If you don’t like bloated government and statist intervention and you think that the policies being imposed by Washington are going to lead to hyperinflation and societal collapse, then you will get a certain level of grim satisfaction by watching the video. While I also stated in that post that I thought the video was far too...

Nearly 300 years ago, two great alliances collided on the Great Plains in a battle that changed the course of American history. But until now, no physical evidence of the storied conflict had ever been found. In the summer of 1720, where the Platte River meets the Loup in eastern Nebraska, Spanish soldiers, New Mexican settlers and their Pueblo and Apache allies clashed with warriors from the Pawnee and Oto nations of the Plains. In a daybreak raid, the Pawnee and the Oto — possibly with the support of French traders — routed the Spanish, killing their commander, Don Pedro...

Published: April 2014Roman Boat Romans in France An ancient wreck tells the tale of Romans in France. By Robert Kunzig Photograph by Rémi Bénali The Romans had a serious trash problem, though by our standards it was good-looking trash. Their problem was amphorae. They needed millions of the curvy clay jars to ship wine, olive oil, and fish sauce around the empire, and often they didn’t recycle their empties. Sometimes they didn’t even bother to pop the cork—it was quicker to saber the neck or the pointy base, drain the thing, then chuck it. In Rome there’s a five-acre,...

Anarchists defaced Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Paris with graffiti, according to French media reports. The graffiti, which denounced God and authority and called for the burning of chapels, was discovered on March 19. The French interior minister and other politicians condemned the vandalism. Additional sources for this storySome links will take you to other sites, in a new window. La basilique du Sacré-Cœur taguée : les politiques indignés condamnent la profanation sur Twitter (France Télévisions) Inscriptions sur la Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre (Ministère de l'Interieur)

BRUSSELS—European Union leaders are likely to approve a modest escalation in sanctions against Russia when they meet on Thursday to debate a response to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, say diplomats familiar with the matter. The leaders seem to be backing off the harsher penalties they had threatened to impose on Russia early this month [...]

France's day of reckoning has arrived: Its wealthy, best and brightest are saying goodbye to a nation they believe doesn't want them to succeed or become affluent.

JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israel cannot depend on the U.S. to take the lead against the Iranian nuclear program, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday. His remarks came just as the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany) are about to begin the next round of talks on Iran's nuclear facilities. The U.S. should be leading the campaign against Iran, Ya'alon said, but instead it's making deals with it. Israel will do what it must to defend itself. "We thought that the one who needs to lead the campaign against Iran is the U.S.," the defense minister said during...

My order is inevitable for it is simply The Father's will concisely done in full view and commitment of My Witness that is My spirit in you . . . Acts 17:28 28 For in him we live and move and are! As one of your own poets says it, ‘We are the sons of God.’ John 14:12 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. Job...