Posted on 01/26/2005 7:45:27 PM PST by quidnunc
Paris – In A gesture likely to bring an apoplectic flush to the face of any dedicated claret drinker, French wine growers have proposed a desperate plan to prop up their slumping industry against New World competition by handing thousands of barrels to industrial distillers.
It is the first time that grand wines protected by the Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) label have been treated in such a way. And as is usually the case with French agriculture, the vignerons are counting on their Government and Brussels to foot much of the bill for mopping up a wine lake of eminently drinkable if unfashionable quality.
The plan to distil more than 266 million bottles of Appellation d’origine contrôlée wine, to become ethanol for vehicles or other products, conjures up the bizarre concept of European drivers filling their tanks with 2004 Bordeaux — and other vintages.
It is a symptom of the plight of growers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and other traditional wine regions as they face their worst crisis since the phylloxera disease killed many of the country’s vines a century ago. The world’s drinkers are turning away from complicated and uneven French AOC wines which bear the names of obscure châteaux in favour of simply and memorably branded tipples from the New World. At the same time the domestic market is shrinking as the French heed medical advice and the threat of the breathalyser and cut down on their consumption.
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(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Eat dirt and die traitorous frog.
I'm a Super Tuscan man myself. Even the Sicillians have finally gotten their yields under control and are producing decent wines.
France: a bigger Belgium, and just as mighty. Without that seat on the UN Security Council, nobody would pay any attention to them.
I almost made a faux pas, (french, i believe), this weekend when I grabbed a bottle of French Merlot for a friend I was going to visit. I didn't realize it was from France until I was halfway through the isle. Of course I made a quick U-turn and put it back and bought one from California.
Did you know that, after the great Phylloxera blight of 1868-1880 in France, MOST French vintners either grafted onto their vines or replaced outright their existing vines with MISSOURI rootstock in the vineyards? Turns out that the Missouri grapes are completely invulnerable (I've no idea about why, or the botany involved) to Phylloxera.
An article worth reading here:
http://ci.weston.mo.us/pages/whattodo/wineries/wineries.html
...and many more citations if you wish. The wineries in Hermann, Dutzow, Defiance, even St. James produce really quite exceptional wines. Right now, today. (NOT -- disclaimer -- a stockholder in any of them).
Who the devil needs the French, eh? Or has ever needed them, bar Louis' little excursion against the English in 1781, and of course the odd bottle of Cuvet Dom Perignon.
Sorry for the typo.
Thanks for the post.
Makes me glad that I have cut out anything coming out of that Nation. WE won't even take a plane stopping there.
This is awful. Now I have to check where the ethanol in the gasoline comes from before I fill up.
Heck, its getting to the point where Two-buck Chuck is better than your average Chateneuf du Pape.
Good for us and the Aussies that we signed the free trade agreement, they're one of the few we can trust. Hell, I'd buy English Wine if they sold it just to say "thanks" to one of our few friends left in the world.
Essence de Bordeaux? Le har de har har!
Let's cue up Fats Domino's "Aint' That a Shame" as we open another bottle of Chateau Fresno.
Just remember what the French Citizen's reaction was to that about eight years later.
Oh good. Now they are going to feed alcohol to their SUVs, and the SUVs will drive drunk and kill a bunch of frogs. Poor little frogs.
Can't the french bathe in it?
They should give it to the DUmmies. They'll be drinking a lot for the next 4 years
;^)
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