News in from Reuters that despite the French being Old Europeans, obstructionists, allies of Saddam Hussein and French, the American wine consumer has a touch more common sense than the American weblogger. According to the CIVB, the Conseil Interprofessionel du Vin de Bordeaux, there was a 77% increase in the value of Bordeaux wines sold to the USA in 2002-03. This is most likely because a) the dollar has fallen and CIVB measures in euros and b) the 2000 vintage has been released, and is by all accounts pretty sensational (christ knows it’s unlikely to be because of this cheesy marketing site), but even so, the Americans overtook the Germans this year as the biggest export market for the Bordelais.
Onivins, the state agency for the wine trade as a whole, confirms that this trend is being seen across the French wine industry. Although the volume of exports to the USA fell by 3%, the value increased by a healthy 35% in the first half of ’03, better than anywhere in the world except Australia. I suppose that you could rescue hysterical predictions made earlier in the year by claiming that the traitorous upper-class liberal transnational progressivists had upped their purchases of Lafite and Petrus because they hate America, while Joe SixPack had boycotted the unearhtly EU-subsidised hellbroth that pours out of Languedoc. But it seems pretty straw-clutching.
(Big up to Sadly, no! for sterling work on this story, by the way.)
[EDIT]: Oh god you’ve just got to check out the CIVD marketing website. It’s hysterical.
{ 17 comments }
dsquared 11.03.03 at 12:17 pm
By the way, management will not be entering into any correspondence with apologists for Langeudoc wine. Yes yes, this particular little vineyard run by a friend of a friend is really fantastic etc etc. No. It’s the lowest chamber of Hell and it produces nothing other than acidic wolf’s piss. The only worse region in France is the Pays-Basque [1] and they at least have the decency not to inflict it on outsiders.
[1]I realise that this marks me down as a defender of Corsican wine, which some would regard as perhaps a little controversial.
des 11.03.03 at 3:47 pm
“Hello. You are here because we have detected that you are using the OPERA browser, VERSION 6 or under”
How very 1996…
DaveVH 11.03.03 at 5:03 pm
The French are ALLIES of Saddam!?
OK, the French-bashing has got out of hand in the blogosphere, it seems. Every other blog I come across seems to go in for this nowadays. It’s fashionable, if that could possibly be an excuse.
But it’s disproportionate. There’s no Russian or German-bashing as far as I can see, despite their efforts to block action in the UNSC before the war. Why concentrate on the French?
These are strange days.
des 11.03.03 at 5:38 pm
That’s an easy one:
“””
In a widely quoted but never clearly sourced remark, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is said to have proposed a formula to break up the anti-American European axis: Punish France, ignore Germany and forgive Russia.
“””
Unless you actually meant “why?” , of course…
dmm 11.03.03 at 5:50 pm
So is the logo in the top corner of the CIVD website supposed to be that suggestive? “Be seduced” indeed.
Jeremy Osner` 11.03.03 at 6:29 pm
dmm — that was my reaction too. I think it is supposed to be a double-entendre wine bottle that also looks like a naked woman, but the double-entendre doesn’t really work because it does not look like a wine bottle.
Jeremy Osner` 11.03.03 at 6:30 pm
PS. What kind of wine are you? I did not take the test but I imagine it would have come up Maneschevitz.
laura 11.03.03 at 6:57 pm
I took the wine personality test. Fabulous — very valuable information:
YOU ARE… A MEDOC / GRAVES
Elegant, but with backbone; you fancy verbal and sword-fencing.
Your spiciness sometimes gets you in trouble, but you always know how to smooth things out. Intense relationships are your hallmark, so why not slow it down with dinner and a lingering kiss at the door?
The following is a list of some appellations which correspond to your wine type:
РHaut-M̩doc
РListrac-M̩doc
– Moulis
– Margaux
РM̩doc
– Pauillac
eszter 11.03.03 at 8:32 pm
dmm – I only saw the naked woman form at first, I had to force myself to figure out how it could be about wine.. if you try really hard you can see the glasses, but puhlease!
Antoni Jaume 11.03.03 at 9:18 pm
I don’t use to drink wine, still I saw two cups of wine à première vue. I rather feel the contrary of Eszter.
DSW
Jeremy Osner` 11.03.03 at 9:21 pm
Hmmm… now I went back looking for two cups of wine and I don’t see that at all. Is it one really big glass (her hips/torso) and one really little one (her crotch)? Or what?
nick 11.03.03 at 11:23 pm
I know the management has slapped a noli me disputere on this, but there really are a few good Vins De Pays d’Oc (yeah, only for the price; yeah, I like Cuvée Mythique, and not just for the label.)
And I’ll try and lower the bar with Gaillac, which never makes it into Oddbins for very good reason. Oldest vineyard in France, set up by the Romans? Tastes like it.
Seb 11.04.03 at 12:07 am
Thanks for the kind words, but:
“By the way, management will not be entering into any correspondence with apologists for Langeudoc wine.”
But I swear there really IS some good wine made in Languedoc-Roussilon. I know this lovely little vineyard near Roujan where…
Nabakov 11.04.03 at 5:30 am
So if you find your own companion for a Slow Dating do, do they charge you corkage?
Dean Allen 11.04.03 at 12:44 pm
Davies, you ignorant slut. Plainly some pimply clerk down at Oddbins has pointed you to the creosote trucked away from Pays d’Oc co-ops and syndicates. There are hundreds of exquisite Languedoc wines. Go to Faugères next holiday.
(Oy Nick, I found a Borie de Maurel at a shop in Montpellier Р2001 Cuv̩e la Feline. Kicked ass.)
dsquared 11.04.03 at 3:57 pm
There are hundreds of exquisite Languedoc wines. Go to Faugères next holiday
I put it to you sir, that you live in France and have thus had your taste warped when it comes to French wines.
Seb 11.09.03 at 4:51 pm
The boycott myth lives on, brought to you by Ralph Peters. I bet he loves Languedoc wines too.
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