Too Much French Wine?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 2nd 2005 at 12:26PM

The LA Times has an interesting article on the current state of French wine. French winemakers are fighting to make their wines more interesting to consumers. For many years, the French enjoyed the reputation of making the best wine but now with California, Australia, Chile and other places producing much of the world's wine, the French are looking at new strategies to make their wine more palatable to the world's wine drinkers. Even the French aren't drinking as much, aggressive drunk driving laws have contributed to a sharp reduction in wine consumption. There is also too much French wine. The government is paying grape growers to turn surplus wine in to industrial alcohol. French winemakers hoping to capture U.S. attention face an uphill battle both because "New World" wine is labeled in a more user-friendly way and because of the falling dollar. Two places that are doing well for the French are the champagne market (perhaps boosted by the educational ad campaign on Champagne) and the top end of the market. Those who know wine are still eagerly buying up the best French vintages. The struggle seems to be converting the mid-range consumer into being a Francophile. It's a tricky situation causing the French to have to decide between having more wine drinkers and keeping their snob cachet.

Filed under: Wine

Source

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mario Chiara Dec 18th 2005 6:01PM

The French wines are also going downhill because other regions of the world are slowly being discovered. Example, Siclian wines. Sicily is one of the oldest wine making reagions in Europe. Sicilian wines are being used to elevate the quality of many other well known Italian and French wines that are expensive. Stronger natural sugar content, thus giving a higher alcohol grade to weaker wines. Not only the Alcohol volume, but due to its wonderful climate and rich soils, Sicilian wines have a fragrance and robust flavor superior to other European wines. As Americans and other wine drinking nations that like to have the best quality become educated that such differences are important..their choices shift to the well know french to others. Fact, Sicilian wines(just to give an example) are not as well know to the general public, in just a few years the quality of a naturally robust wines( no need to put Sicilian wines in barrels for years to give them flavor like the french do) have recieved the top awards for the best wines. I invite all readers to look out for and taste Sisilian wines and judge for themselves. I know that soon they will play and important part in repalcing the monoply that French wines have insited in having until recently.
Please, although Corvo and Donnafugata, Regaliali and Almerita are good wines..they are not the best! If anyone is interested I could provide you with an interesting list of wonderful wines that you will certainly enjoy! Cheers!