Posted on 07/02/2005 5:47:22 PM PDT by quidnunc
They used to uncork their best bottles for festivals on July 14, but French wine growers such as Bernard Farges have little to celebrate next week. Far from evoking the triumphant storming of the Bastille, the date makes him and other bordeaux vignerons queasy.
“I feel sick to the heart,” said Farges, from Mauriac. The source of his melancholy is a European Union-funded process in which some of the quality red wine he produces will be distilled into undrinkable ethanol for use as factory fuel. The deadline for participating in the scheme is Bastille Day, a cruel irony. Farges has already sent in his forms.
It may seem heinous to any enthusiastic bordeaux drinker, but the EU has pledged £100m under the common agricultural policy to turn 670m bottles of French and Spanish wine into industrial alcohol to help reduce a surplus caused by competition from the New World.
This is not the first year in which plonk has been sold to industrial distillers, but never before have quality wines protected by the appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) label been subjected to such indignity. Some 200m bottles that might have graced the dining table are destined to become factory chemicals this year.
The idea is to help to prop up a slumping market for French wine but the EU’s “crisis financing” of the process is being cited as an example of the profligacy of a system that Tony Blair wants to reform but which the French are fighting to keep.
Farges, 40, produces a “very drinkable” 350,000 litres of quality AOC-labelled bordeaux that is normally sold to restaurants and cafes. This year, however, some 20,000 litres of it — about 26,000 bottles — will go to the distillers.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Hehhehe....
I live in Temecula, Ca. and all I buy is the Local wine we produce right here in my little wine valley.
Wilson Creek Winery... mmmmmmmmmmmm
Screw France, they can piss all the wine they want, I hope their Grapes rot on the vines...
are we sure that these frogs couldnt SELL their slop due to the EMBARGO?
Boycotts never work: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,78921,00.html
Here in my area, there are still mom & pop stores with signs in the window saying they don't stock French cheese, wines, or other products. It's been that way since shortly after Sept. 11th.
Me too. The news media was more than happy to thumb their noses at 'Freedom Fries' and portray boycotters of French products as deranged rednecks. Who's laughing now?
I am, while I sip a nice Australian red. Good on ya!
Serves 'em right! Wonder if they'll ever get it figured out...it's not the taste it's the producers.
I can hear the 2 Senators from Massachusetts sobbing from here.
So much FRench wine, so few dirty socks!!
I wonder also if the law says this wine ethanol cannot be used in war machines. Oh, that's right, they don't have any war machines.
(literally, the departments are divided into crus (growths) and then into communes.
From vin ordinaire to nationale ordiaire in one easy step: the Chirac legacy.
Yet another Frenchman surrenders without a fight.
I'll keep drinking California and Australian wines.
http://www.infoukes.com/history/chornobyl/index.html
PS - Ship the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys all the "two-buck Chuck" they can carry....bbblleeeehhhkkkk!
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