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Schools get call to save French wine makers (SCHADENFREUDE UPDATE)
The Sunday Times ^ | July 25, 2004 | Matthew Campbell

Posted on 07/24/2004 4:22:10 PM PDT by MadIvan

UNDER threat from foreign competition, France’s wine industry is pushing for winemaking lessons in primary schools to educate children about the superiority of French methods.

The proposal was included in a report to the government last week by a parliamentary commission that also recommended the reclassification of wine as food to get round strict laws on the advertising of alcohol.

The 130-page report presented to Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the prime minister, called for a programme to educate the young about wine and teach them to recognise a good vintage, while also warning them about the dangers of over-consumption.

It called for an organisation to combat prejudice against French wine and fight competition. The report called wine a “part of our history, our identity, our civilisation”.

Raffarin, who commissioned the report, will now decide whether France should follow Spain and redefine wine as a foodstuff. This would free French wine from advertising restrictions that require health warnings and the advice to “consume it in moderation”.

Health workers, however, have warned that changing the law would fuel alcoholism. A debate has been raging over the role played by wine in alcohol-related illnesses.

Alain Rigaud, president of the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction, argued that two-thirds of people treated in France for alcohol problems were dependent on wine.

“Advertising would just legitimise problem drinkers in their problem drinking,” he said.

The drive by the winemakers to make people drink more is the result of an erosion in their livelihoods caused by falling consumption at home and the popularity of Australian and American wines in France’s traditional export markets. Exports of French wine dropped by 7% in the first half of 2004, compared with the same period last year.

Another problem this year is that France is making too much wine. The harvest in 2004 is expected to be 19% higher than last year’s drought-hit production, lowering prices.

Complicating the effort to turn wine into food is another national campaign — the crackdown on drink driving, which has resulted in a 21% drop in road deaths. The goal is a 20% reduction in alcohol consumption by 2008.

Against this, Raffarin must balance the 300,000 jobs that are at stake in the vineyards. “We’re talking generalised panic,” said Michel Remonda, head of a winemakers’ association which is seeking more subsidies for producers.

So worried are the winemakers that they are considering initiatives they would have frowned upon only last year, including labelling bordeaux and burgundy wines according to grape variety to simplify things for consumers. There could be worse to come. “Why not put wood shavings in the wine to give it a woody taste?” asked Christian Gély, president of a winemakers’ committee. This was common among “new world” producers, he said.

The drop in exports has focused attention on a growing wine lake at home. The health lobby contends that efforts to shift this surplus are being made at the expense of the public. “What this amounts to,” said Rigaud, “is that we can’t export all the wine we want to, so French people will have to drink it.”

Addiction specialists are being drowned out by MPs from the winemaking regions who argue that French wine is losing out in supermarkets to spirits and beer. “If you’re not out there on the market, somebody else will just take your place with other products that can also affect health,” said Philippe Martin, an MP who helped to draw up the report.

It is food for thought and a decision is not expected until after the summer holidays, leaving Raffarin time enough to test the nutritional values of wine.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: france; oenology; trouble; wine; zymurgy
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And people used to criticise President Reagan for supposedly re-classifying ketchup as a vegetable.

Regards, Ivan


1 posted on 07/24/2004 4:22:17 PM PDT by MadIvan
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To: agrace; lightingguy; EggsAckley; dinasour; AngloSaxon; Dont Mention the War; KangarooJacqui; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 07/24/2004 4:22:39 PM PDT by MadIvan (Gothic. Freaky. Conservative. - http://www.rightgoths.com/)
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To: MadIvan

Have they stopped using cow blood to color their red wines yet?


3 posted on 07/24/2004 4:24:23 PM PDT by snopercod (What we have lost will not be returned to us.)
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To: MadIvan
by a parliamentary commission that also recommended the reclassification of wine as food

When they start stuffing whole grapes in a Cabernet bottle then it might fly.

4 posted on 07/24/2004 4:25:29 PM PDT by ShadowDancer
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To: MadIvan

If they bathed they could use the stuff to bathe in if they bathed.


5 posted on 07/24/2004 4:26:00 PM PDT by OSHA (Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger 10/28/45 - xx/xx/04 (Suicide pending documentation of depression.))
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To: MadIvan
Complicating the effort to turn wine into food is another national campaign —

Ivan,

Wine isn't food?

6 posted on 07/24/2004 4:28:28 PM PDT by woofer
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To: MadIvan
... French class in The Belles of St. Trinian's.
7 posted on 07/24/2004 4:29:40 PM PDT by dighton
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To: woofer

I think of wine as food...so much so that I had it (and it alone) for dinner last night.


8 posted on 07/24/2004 4:31:02 PM PDT by Exodus22 (In a world of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act...George Orwell)
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To: MadIvan

They need to concentrate on the influence that Islam is having on their national identity.


9 posted on 07/24/2004 4:31:45 PM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker (When the cracker gets old, you wind up with Old Cracker. - O.C.)
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To: dighton

Wonderful movie.


10 posted on 07/24/2004 4:33:04 PM PDT by ladylib
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To: ShadowDancer

The French use dried cow blood in their wines. That is one more reason not to drink it. Drink US wines instead.


11 posted on 07/24/2004 4:33:17 PM PDT by nwrep
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To: nwrep

What?


12 posted on 07/24/2004 4:34:50 PM PDT by I got the rope
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To: snopercod

Not to be too technical here, but blood is not used for color, it is used as a fining agent, to soften tannins in red wines (to reduce astringency). In the U.S., we often use egg whites or gelatin for the same purpose.


13 posted on 07/24/2004 4:35:02 PM PDT by GnL
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To: woofer
I'll say this much, if they're going to classify wine as food, I don't want to hear any arguments about beer. ;)

Regards, Ivan

14 posted on 07/24/2004 4:35:10 PM PDT by MadIvan (Gothic. Freaky. Conservative. - http://www.rightgoths.com/)
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To: MadIvan
The unemployment problem in the French vineyards can easily be solved by simply reducing the workweek from 35 hours to 28, maybe, 29 hours.

That doesn't solve the larger problems, the demand for French wine. French wine is good for washing your socks. Thus, demand can increase by increasing those activities that dirty more socks. There's where the solution is.

As always, we can only hope that the French get exactly what they deserve!

15 posted on 07/24/2004 4:39:45 PM PDT by Tacis
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To: MadIvan

The schools are spending the entire first week on Lesson # 1: Teaching the children how to properly point their noses in the air while looking down at anyone who is not French.


16 posted on 07/24/2004 4:47:22 PM PDT by demkicker
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To: Tacis

No French wine allowed in this house.


17 posted on 07/24/2004 4:49:14 PM PDT by Ben Chad
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To: MadIvan

I thought Chirac has made them the world's most prodigious whine-exporting nations. They use a little too much sour grapes though.


18 posted on 07/24/2004 4:49:55 PM PDT by kcar (www.TheUNsucks.com)
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To: MadIvan

Maybe less people are buying wine because the population is MORE AND MORE muslim.


19 posted on 07/24/2004 5:05:41 PM PDT by blueminnesota
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To: MadIvan
Ivan,

Beer is food.

Schlitz wasn't known as the breakfast of champions for nothing.

20 posted on 07/24/2004 5:09:45 PM PDT by woofer
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