Posted on 04/28/2005 6:06:18 PM PDT by quidnunc
Pity the French wine industry. Since entering the new century on a high with one of the most hyped Bordeaux vintages in two decades, nothing has gone its way. French wine consumption, while tops in the world, has slipped 10% since 1999, according to Vinexpo/ISWR. By 2008 look for it to fall another 7% as younger French drinkers switch to beer and spirits for their joie de vivre.
The export picture is ugly, too. There has been a three-year decline in sales in the U.S., France's second-biggest export market, partly because of the backlash to France's stance in the Iraq war. And the euro's strength has made bottles pricier for loyal drinkers elsewhere. To top it all off, Australia is grabbing market share.
"The competition is bigger and bigger, with a simple message. The French, we have a complex message," says François Lurton, of Jacques & François Lurton, a wine company in Varyes, France that he owns with his brother, Jacques. "In the U.S. a new generation of consumers has come to wine, and they are not educated enough to understand the complex message of European wine," he explains.
That complexity is represented by the wines made in Burgundy and Bordeaux, which operate under the AOC system (controlled appellations that are in reality brand cooperatives). Because of strict rules winemakers in the AOC system don't have the option of making vin de pays or vin de table wines, which are of a simpler style often favored by Americans. The system is also plagued by bad producers that are killing the image of AOCs. "The consumer accepts there are different brands from a region, but there are so many variations of quality that it has bred resistance and suspicion," says François.
-snip-
This is becasue I am outbidding them for their wine.
ML/NJ
""In the U.S. a new generation of consumers has come to wine, and they are not educated enough to understand the complex message of European wine," he explains." Froggy conveniently doesn't remember a certain blind tasting sometimes referred to as "the judgement of Paris" where a group of American wines trounced their French competition. For my part, I suggest this guy try a bottle of Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir grown about 30 miles up 101. Even an off year is better than 95% of all the Rhone Valley wine ever produced - and costs less. Don't understand complex message my butt.
Oh. my. Gawd. You can't make this stuff up!
Good luck, Francois, you're going to need it.
We Americans always seem to have trouble with complexity or nuance. Just ask Monsieur Jean Kerry.
Poor Pierre. BWAHAHAHAHA
Fear in Southern France
A wine region finds itself in crisis, by Kim Marcus
Wine Spectator, April 25, 2005
On a recent trip to some of the top winemaking regions of southern France—Languedoc, Roussillon and the southwestern districts of Madiran and Cahors—I noticed a palpable sense of unease, if not downright fear, among many French vintners.
It wasn't until I was high in the rugged northern reaches of the Languedoc, where hearty Syrah-based blends reign supreme, that I realized that it was more serious than the usual concerns about the weather. I was at Château Ste.-Eulalie in the La Livinière cru of the Minervois appellation. Co-owner Isabelle Coustal makes some of the best reds in the region, but it's been difficult over the years for her to find and hold onto a reliable importer for the U.S. market, a quandary she shares with many an aspiring French vintner.
Coustal is hardworking, dedicated and sincere. We've profiled her as one of the leading members of France's new generation of vintners ("France's New Faces," Sept. 30, 2003). She is a mother of three, and her husband, Laurent, works as a winemaker in Bordeaux, which lies a three-hour drive away, to help pay the mortgage on the property. He comes home for long weekends.
Coustal was moving cases of wine with a forklift when I arrived. She recognized me and was pleased to pour her wines. But first I asked her how things were going. "La crise," she responded simply and directly, almost in a tone of resignation. I was taken aback for a moment, but Coustal's report of crisis was echoed throughout my journey, and I soon realized that her words were reflective of the dire straits that many French vintners face today. A mixture of economic, political and cultural currents is converging to put dark clouds on their horizon.
As I went from winery to winery, the vignerons would most often address their problems themselves by asking me the questions first. During a visit to the famed Madiran estate of Alain Brumont, both the winemakers and the marketers were precise in their queries. What are people drinking in the United States, and are they drinking more? What do Americans think about Australian wines? Are California wines selling well in the United States? How is the American economy doing? The French may be looking more to the outside world at this point because wine on the domestic front is under siege from a variety of sources.
The French government has really cracked down on drinking and driving, as well as speeding. I myself was pulled over in a random check in Cahors (I don't drink and drive and was politely told to continue on my way). The accepted blood alcohol content in France is .05, appreciably lower than the .08 standard in force in the United States. Vintners say there has been a noticeable drop in wine consumption, especially in restaurants; from my own observations, half-bottles shared between two or more people were much more common than full bottles. In addition, young people in France are opting more and more for beer and carbonated beverages over wine, indicating a future of even lower French domestic wine consumption.
French vintners also face arcane government-sanctioned winemaking rules that increasingly hobble them in the highly competitive international wine marketplace. This is nowhere more true than in the highly fragmented south, where winemaking traditions are young and vintners are still exploring which grapes work best in which soils.
On top of all this is the sheer absurdity and poor quality of many of the French vineyards, in the south and elsewhere. There are still too many low-quality grapes that in the best scenarios are distilled into alcohol to rid the market of their existence, and in the worst cases are made into plonk at cooperative wineries. Yet the vines remain planted because of subsidies and market supports, which act as a millstone around the necks of quality-oriented producers. "People cannot continue to produce wines that don't have a market," says Jean-Charles Cazes, who is heading up his family's new venture, L'Ostal Cazes, in the Minervois just down the hill from Coustal. "With great wines coming from Chile, South Africa and Australia, you cannot afford to make mediocre wines."
In March, explosives went off at Languedoc producer Domaine de la Baume in a move that was seen as a protest against the globalization of wine and its effects on local winegrowers (la Baume is owned by France's largest wine export). The Languedoc has always been a rebellious part of France, and protests by the region's winegrowers are steeped in the history of the region. But the tides of history are running against the mediocre wines in France, and elsewhere. I only hope that vintners such as Coustal and other quality producers will be able to survive the turmoil and changes that lie ahead.
So9
??? ..Whats' so complex? If the "Aussies" are making/marketing a better product, what's so complex...and insulting the U.S. Consumers can't help either...
I don't think the new Islamic majority overlords in France care much for wine. Sharia anyone?
a fool and his money....
We Americans always seem to have trouble with complexity or nuance. Just ask Monsieur Jean Kerry.
Yup, and yet amazingly we do just about everything as well as it's ever been done.
It must just be dumb luck!
/Sarcasm
SNIP FROM
http://www.italystl.com/ra/2001.htm
"French domestic wine consumption has dropped to historic lows, with the country drinking half as much wine per capita as it did in 1960, partially due to an aggressive campaign against drunk driving.
SNIP
with consumption headed due south, French winemakers, more comfortable basking in tradition than questioning it, are rethinking the Rules governing how they Make and Name their wines, the Grapes they grow and How they are grown.
SNIP
The French have finally come to the late realization that "We can't
anymore tell the nice wine story".
I bid you "CHEERS" with a glass of California Cabernet......
ping
He is correct. Most Americans don't understand that the really fine wines taste bad. The unsophisticated Americans buy and drink wines that taste good, without regard to the elements which should be taken into account in judging a fine wine, including the proper balance between a sour and a bitter taste.
Proper balance is not between sour and bitter, but between acidity and sugar. Too much sugar, you get a flabby wine; too little, a sharp, dry wine that pinches in the back of the mouth. Yada, yada.
Bitter is not a desirable trait in a wine. Perhaps you are referring to the tannin levels. Sour has no place in a wine at all.
That being said, I'd rather have a glass of wine with you than that French a-hole quoted in the above article, any day. Cheers.
A glass of Stag's Leap or Cakebread, Monsieur?
It was piss off les Francais that our best wines in many cases are equal or superior to those of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire.
My faves are still Italian Barolos. The only problem being that you need to wait ten years after purchase for the wine to be drinkable. :-(
Just tell the ag researchers at UC Davis. They've developed strawberries that are three inches across and taste just like, well, nothing.
I'm sure they could develop a California Barolo that matured in two years and tasted just like.... Never mind.
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