Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The French and wine
The French government is taking steps to reclassify wine as "nourishment," which would ease restrictions on advertising and make life easier for the embattled French wine industry.
This story comes from Instapundit and Volokh, neither of which mention that the French have been making this argument for more than half a century.
During the airlift to break the blockade of Berlin in 1948-49, the Americans were appalled to discover that the French were allocating scarce airlift capacity for the shipment of wine for the soldiers on duty in their sector of that city. The American government protested to Paris, which responded with a paper that argued that wine was "essential to the constitution of a Frenchman." Rather than fight Paris -- it was a more accomodating time -- the Americans decided that airlift capacity wasn't so scarce after all and began flying in Coca-Cola. Which presumably was essential to the constitution of an American GI.
For some years, French winegrowers have suffered from increasing competition from high-quality wines made in vineyards ranging from Australia to California, South Africa to Chile, resulting in falling export levels. Domestic consumption, meanwhile, also has fallen amid health concerns and changing tastes.
This story comes from Instapundit and Volokh, neither of which mention that the French have been making this argument for more than half a century.
During the airlift to break the blockade of Berlin in 1948-49, the Americans were appalled to discover that the French were allocating scarce airlift capacity for the shipment of wine for the soldiers on duty in their sector of that city. The American government protested to Paris, which responded with a paper that argued that wine was "essential to the constitution of a Frenchman." Rather than fight Paris -- it was a more accomodating time -- the Americans decided that airlift capacity wasn't so scarce after all and began flying in Coca-Cola. Which presumably was essential to the constitution of an American GI.
0 Comments:
