[Atlantic Friend]

From my experience, the wine becomes overpriced when it becomes trendy - isn't price always a question of balance between the offer and the demand ?

You can find very good French wines at affordable prices (at least here, since I've never bought French wine in the US), if you're adventurous enough to stray out of the very "showy" vintages.

[Clemenza]

I know several people in the retail end of the wine business. All their wines from France are collecting dust, so they haven't been ordering more. The devaluation of the dollar doesn't help, although they still are buying the same quantities from Italy and Spain.

The Italians export wines at various qualities and price, while the French only export what they consider to be "export quality" wines and price them at a premium. With all the competition from both the "New World" and other countries in Europe, however, this has proven to be quite uneconomical.