Dernier Cri: French Lunacy
Why does the world’s foremost wine-producing country hate wine?
Randy Sheahan
France is a great country with a rich culture, but sometimes it can be silly in the extreme. A good example is the French government’s current anti-wine stance.
Nothing is more synonymous with La Belle France than wine. Indeed, France’s wine industry employs 300,000 persons, accounts for 17 percent of the country’s agriculture and brings in almost $8 billion a year. French wine is the benchmark against which all of the world’s wines are judged. And it is, when consumed judiciously, a safe and decidedly healthy quaff. Yet on this latter point, the French government seems to differ, going so far a few years back as to launch an ad campaign that accused wine of causing cancer, when indeed there’s considerable evidence to the contrary. As Burgundy winemaker Pascale Chicotot told the International Herald Tribune last October, “They [the French government] treat us as if we’re making a dangerous product. We are not terrorists. Wine is not a dangerous product. Wine is a noble thing.”
Many French wine producers point the finger at President Sarkozy, who purportedly does not drink wine, and therefore, they say, could care less about their plight. But the French government’s anti-wine posture long predates his presidency. For several years now in France, there have been tough restrictions on advertising wine in print, while touting wine on television and the Internet is banned altogether. Things are so bad that, in 2005, the French daily newspaper, Le Parisien, was fined over $6,000 for publishing an article about Champagne without including the warning statement “L’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé” (“The abuse of alcohol is dangerous to health”). This statement is mandatory only for advertising, so why was the newspaper fined for an editorial piece? Well, said the judge who made the ruling, Le Parisien’s advocacy of Champagne was akin to advertising and so was subject to the same strictures. Incroyable!
No one denies that alcoholism is a serious disease. But painting wine — especially fine wine — with the same brush as other alcoholic beverages, is perverting the truth. As Hugh Johnson writes, “Wine, unlike spirits, has long been considered the drink of moderation,” and historically, “Moderate wine drinkers [have] found themselves better nourished, more confidant and consequently ... more capable than their fellows.” The French government should not be demonizing wine (and in the process severing its nez to spite its visage), it should be promoting wine as a beverage which can, in moderation, encourage fellowship and assure good health. Those of us who drink fine wine do so not to escape reality, but to enhance — in a non-indulgent, non-hedonistic way — the pleasure of life. Indeed, drinking wine is all about “Liberté, égalité et fraternité.” It’s sad that the French government cannot see this.
