Post by cjm on Feb 10, 2014 6:55:54 GMT
More from Peynaud p233 et seq.
THE PRIMACY OF FRENCH WINES
The civilizing power of wine is conquering the world. There are few peoples who can escape the attractions that this drink exerts. The Americans have recently discovered the humanity of wine, and across the Atlantic there is a body of enthusiastic and informative wine literature giving serious coverage to the history and geography of wine, and treating the art of drinking as an art of living. The Japanese imitate the Anglo-Saxons; full of curiosity and earnest application, they are making praiseworthy efforts to absorb this refinement of western culture.
There is also a potential group of converts in Asia, non-Muslim Africa and Central America. The consumption of wine is rising in many countries along with the rise in incomes. In contrast, the consumption in traditional wine-drinking countries is falling because they are drinking more quality wine and less ordinary wine. In France they are drinking less but drinking better.
At the same time the vine is spreading and covering the globe’s surface wherever there is enough sunshine to ripen its fruit. By following the Europeans it emigrated to countries throughout the world. It has been planted for a long time in South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Australia; and, having given up the Nordic fringe where it did not exactly flourish (though one can find remarkable bottles of white wine from England and even from Holland), it is now growing in the tropics and subtropics thanks to antiparasitic treatments and the advances that have been made in viticultural biology. Vineyards for wine can be found in Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Columbia and Mexico. I have tasted wines from China,Japan, India, Iran, Turkey, Brazil, Jamaica and New Zealand. Thousands of hectares of vines are being planted annually in Mexico. A third of the two hundred thousand hectares of vines in California had still not produced grapes in 1976, but the United States now exports wine.
It is noticeable that wine and the vine have been propagated by strong nations.
This is Dumay’s thesis. He demonstrates that the great wines have always been the privilege of great nations, those who could afford the necessary capital investment, and who had the requisite means of transport as well as a mastery of commerce. The vine developed in the west at the time of the Roman Empire and retreated during the Dark Ages.
The wines which were famous during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at the time of the conquistadors and the “empire on which the sun never set”, were Spanish wines; in Paris people drank wine from Alicante or the Canaries. It was France’s supremacy in the eighteenth century which then gave her wines pride of place. We started by exporting wines from Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy. At the same time the great maritime powers, the Netherlands and England in turn, traded in wines and helped create the great vineyards. Following the logic of his proposition Dumay clearly sees, in the near future, an invasion by the wines of California or Eastern Europe. But that’s another story.
What is the place of French wines in this world of viticultural expansion and in the present commercial climate, and what are their chances against the competition? The reputation of our wines is very old and continues to be the best. This is the comforting observation that the traveller abroad can make. Our ancestors worked prodigiously to make our wines known throughout the world; this heritage is intact. French wines, above all French red wines, are bench marks for quality and models to imitate everywhere. Our grape varieties, which adapt so well to different climates, are used and, thanks to enviable installations and irreproachable technology, wines are made abroad which are copies of our appellations, occasionally somewhat exaggerated, but often quite admirable.
I belong to those who consider that good wines, wherever they may come from, promote the cause of other good wines, and that no country can become a serious importer unless the indigenous consumer has been prepared by the production of good quality local wine. However, by the same token, the competition from foreign wines is becoming more and more lively, and is an increasing threat to our interests.
There is only one possible strategy for us in the wine war which is just beginning: to produce wines that are better and better, whose quality is unquestionable and also unattainable by foreign producers. The competition is at the level of quality; we will only survive if we remain the best.
French production must continue to be based on our concept of quality, a reflection of our vineyards, our countryside and our winemakers. We must make wines in our own image, which conform to our way of life; and we must avoid falling into the trap of copying the imitations of our own wines on the pretext of satisfying the markets. We need to preserve the typicity, classic quality and personality of our products. What we do not want is wine production on an industrial scale, aiming solely at short-term profit, and we also need to avoid the successive traps of high yields, blind mechanization, mass and entirely automated vinification where man has neither choice nor control, and the abandonment of élevage and ageing. Everywhere abroad they know how to make anonymous and commonplace wines more economically and using devices not available to us.
These wines can be drunk immediately but do not keep, being made from forced and insipid grapes. This is not the field on which we are going to win the wine battle; we will win by continuing to produce wines that cannot be made anywhere else. It is by remaining faithful servants of the French art of winemaking that we will best defend the primacy of French wines.
THE PRIMACY OF FRENCH WINES
The civilizing power of wine is conquering the world. There are few peoples who can escape the attractions that this drink exerts. The Americans have recently discovered the humanity of wine, and across the Atlantic there is a body of enthusiastic and informative wine literature giving serious coverage to the history and geography of wine, and treating the art of drinking as an art of living. The Japanese imitate the Anglo-Saxons; full of curiosity and earnest application, they are making praiseworthy efforts to absorb this refinement of western culture.
There is also a potential group of converts in Asia, non-Muslim Africa and Central America. The consumption of wine is rising in many countries along with the rise in incomes. In contrast, the consumption in traditional wine-drinking countries is falling because they are drinking more quality wine and less ordinary wine. In France they are drinking less but drinking better.
At the same time the vine is spreading and covering the globe’s surface wherever there is enough sunshine to ripen its fruit. By following the Europeans it emigrated to countries throughout the world. It has been planted for a long time in South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Australia; and, having given up the Nordic fringe where it did not exactly flourish (though one can find remarkable bottles of white wine from England and even from Holland), it is now growing in the tropics and subtropics thanks to antiparasitic treatments and the advances that have been made in viticultural biology. Vineyards for wine can be found in Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Columbia and Mexico. I have tasted wines from China,Japan, India, Iran, Turkey, Brazil, Jamaica and New Zealand. Thousands of hectares of vines are being planted annually in Mexico. A third of the two hundred thousand hectares of vines in California had still not produced grapes in 1976, but the United States now exports wine.
It is noticeable that wine and the vine have been propagated by strong nations.
This is Dumay’s thesis. He demonstrates that the great wines have always been the privilege of great nations, those who could afford the necessary capital investment, and who had the requisite means of transport as well as a mastery of commerce. The vine developed in the west at the time of the Roman Empire and retreated during the Dark Ages.
The wines which were famous during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, at the time of the conquistadors and the “empire on which the sun never set”, were Spanish wines; in Paris people drank wine from Alicante or the Canaries. It was France’s supremacy in the eighteenth century which then gave her wines pride of place. We started by exporting wines from Bordeaux, Champagne and Burgundy. At the same time the great maritime powers, the Netherlands and England in turn, traded in wines and helped create the great vineyards. Following the logic of his proposition Dumay clearly sees, in the near future, an invasion by the wines of California or Eastern Europe. But that’s another story.
What is the place of French wines in this world of viticultural expansion and in the present commercial climate, and what are their chances against the competition? The reputation of our wines is very old and continues to be the best. This is the comforting observation that the traveller abroad can make. Our ancestors worked prodigiously to make our wines known throughout the world; this heritage is intact. French wines, above all French red wines, are bench marks for quality and models to imitate everywhere. Our grape varieties, which adapt so well to different climates, are used and, thanks to enviable installations and irreproachable technology, wines are made abroad which are copies of our appellations, occasionally somewhat exaggerated, but often quite admirable.
I belong to those who consider that good wines, wherever they may come from, promote the cause of other good wines, and that no country can become a serious importer unless the indigenous consumer has been prepared by the production of good quality local wine. However, by the same token, the competition from foreign wines is becoming more and more lively, and is an increasing threat to our interests.
There is only one possible strategy for us in the wine war which is just beginning: to produce wines that are better and better, whose quality is unquestionable and also unattainable by foreign producers. The competition is at the level of quality; we will only survive if we remain the best.
French production must continue to be based on our concept of quality, a reflection of our vineyards, our countryside and our winemakers. We must make wines in our own image, which conform to our way of life; and we must avoid falling into the trap of copying the imitations of our own wines on the pretext of satisfying the markets. We need to preserve the typicity, classic quality and personality of our products. What we do not want is wine production on an industrial scale, aiming solely at short-term profit, and we also need to avoid the successive traps of high yields, blind mechanization, mass and entirely automated vinification where man has neither choice nor control, and the abandonment of élevage and ageing. Everywhere abroad they know how to make anonymous and commonplace wines more economically and using devices not available to us.
These wines can be drunk immediately but do not keep, being made from forced and insipid grapes. This is not the field on which we are going to win the wine battle; we will win by continuing to produce wines that cannot be made anywhere else. It is by remaining faithful servants of the French art of winemaking that we will best defend the primacy of French wines.