Free Republic

Doug Burgum was bracing for disaster at the top of the ticket. “The Clintons might be the luckiest family in the world because Bill doesn’t win in 1992 without Ross Perot,” he told a North Dakota radio show eight years ago, “and Hillary doesn’t win in 2016 without Donald Trump.” But Clinton did not fall to Trump that year, and the soundbite from the future governor of North Dakota, a bleak sentiment widespread among Republicans at the time, went largely unnoticed. Until now. Perhaps it won’t mean much. Although Trump is a man who knows how to nurture a grudge,...

The Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune, nestled in the rolling hills of Burgundy's wine country, is the last place you'd expect to find a fighter plane which once had atomic bombs strapped expectantly under its wings. Michel Pont, who is the world's biggest private collector of fighter planes with 110 according to the Guinness Book of World Records, inherited the castle in the 1980s and stuffed every corner of his property with his prized possessions. The former pilot's obsession began during his days in the military and continued as he travelled the world trying to stop vintage planes from being destroyed. His...

A multi-purpose bone tool dating from the Neanderthal era has been discovered by University of Montreal researchers, throwing into question our current understanding of the evolution of human behaviour. It was found at an archaeological site in France... Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia in the Middle Paleolithic between around 250,000 to 28,000 years ago. Homo sapiens is the scientific term for modern man. The production of bone tools by Neanderthals is open to debate. For much of the twentieth century, prehistoric experts were reluctant to recognize the ability of this species to incorporate materials like bone into their...

BORDEAUX, Burgundy… Xinjiang. The world's wine map may have to be significantly re-drawn with figures showing more than a glass is being raised to China. Such is the pace of wine consumption in China that last year the country produced more than 700 million bottles with new statistics showing that production will outstrip Australia's by 2009. Supermarket chain Morrisons has already added two wines ADVERTISEMENT from the north-west of China to its portfolio, while London fine wine merchants Berry Brothers & Rudd (BBR) has predicted that, by 2058, China will have all the essential ingredients to make fine wine to...

The Bordeaux region's St Emilion wines have been stripped of their top classifications by a French court, which has ruled that "grand cru classés" labels should be taken off bottles. The ruling follows a year-long legal fight by four wine makers whose wines were demoted in 2006. They argued that the system used to rank wines after a tasting was "partial". "It's an aberration to condemn the classification over so little," said Nicolas Thienpont, owner of Chateau Pavie-Macquin, recently awarded the second highest rank of St Emilion premier grand cru classé. "All those who have worked so hard to move...

BEAUNE, FRANCE — Is it time for Burgundy lovers to panic? Are the prices of these most exquisite and expressive wines about to spiral into the stratosphere, propelled by a burgeoning generation of Burgundy fans from China? In short, is Burgundy about to go the way of Bordeaux? Those fears were weighing on many people’s minds last weekend — at least, those who spend euros, dollars, pounds or yen, rather than renminbi — at the biggest annual wine party in Burgundy, three days of not-always-fine dining and drinking that surround the Hospices de Beaune charity auction. At the auction, the...

The French call pinot noir "the noble grape" and have long considered it a source of inspiration. Now it can also be appreciated as the reason for an extensive, localized climate record. A study found a close match between pinot noir grape harvest dates in Burgundy, sea surface temperature trends and the Western European climate. The relationship could be used to forecast harvest dates months in advance. Yves Tourre, from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. and the French meteorological service, Meteo-France, in Toulouse, presented research on the significance of a nearly 700-year record of pinot noir grape...

Some 10,000 people have attended the funeral of Brother Roger, the founder of the religious community of Taize. German President Horst Koehler, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and clergy from around the world were at the service. The 90-year-old Swiss-born theologian was stabbed to death by a Romanian woman while celebrating mass last week. He founded the community during World War II as a refuge to people of all Christian denominations. Taize, in the Burgundy region of France, later became an international pilgrimage site for young people who go there to pray and meditate. It draws some 100,000 people each...

Okay. We get it. You need money to run the joint.You have your quarterly fundraisers and they seemed to be working out.Must you put VisaMasterCardDiscoverAmericanExpress logos all over the place now as well?It cheapens the joint.