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Dear Judith Anne,

Thank you.

It hurts a little to see my "trans-alpine" cousins called frogs. Anyway, "roosters" would be more appropriate.

One of the great ironies - though understandable of course - is that Americans have stopped drinking wines to punish the French. The poor winemakers are among the most conservative elements of that country, the least happy to see Islam encroach. Wine is forbidden by Islam!

The best policy of course is to prefer and cultivate your own very good American wines. But punishing French wines is ideologically counterproductive as well as an assault on civilization itself. Even if America were governed by a man with a moustache waving his arms from a balcony to goose-setpping throngs, I would still love pancakes, brownies, cheese cake.

I believe it is wrong to punish civilization over matters of politics. However, to hell with French wines, because I have my own Italian wines to defend. I just recently discovered that here in our south we have a Zinfandel called "Primitivo"... genetically almost identical to the famous California wines (which are now being sold in Italy!

Salute!

Your English is quite good.

Remember, though: In America, it is considered low-class to call the French "frogs".

Here in America, it is much more proper to call them "cheese-eating surrender monkeys".

You make an excellent point but I have always preferred American wines...in Missouri, my state, there are several small but excellent wineries, and I buy those for table wines.

Otherwise, I do like Italian wines, and Australian wines. I've never been knowledgeable enough to get anything adventurous, and I'm not enough of an aficionada to learn, alas.

But I do think Italy is very beautiful, and would like to visit someday. It's my daughter's dream to go there and paint for a summer, but I don't want her to go, I think she'd most likely never leave! She does religious art for both Catholic and protestant churches in a very traditional style, and is getting well known in our area.

All the best, FRiend. I hope to see you posting on these Euro articles, you have good opinions.