I sent a story over to Decanter this morning on the self-censorship that is spreading all over France against writing or speaking about wine, I am pretty much reproducing the news story here, but there is much more to say, so I'm adding more info, particulalry from Jacques Dupont's excellent piece in French magazine Le Point.
The continued confusion over the legality of wine advertising in France is leading more and more organisations to employ levels of caution that amount to extreme self-censorship.
Most are confined to the internet and the media – Orange France, for example, has banned any advertising on its websites from wine companies, Camus Cognac refuses even admission to its website from any servers it detects coming from within France, and countless magazines and newspapers now routinely follow all articles about wine with the government health warning on alcohol abuse. A television channel recently used the same health warning before showing the documentary film about the wine industry, Mondovino.
But the self-censorship is spreading further – the Post Office recently refused the request of a restaurateur in the Gers, Chrstophe Termote of L’Auberge d’Astarac, for personalised stamps because they depicted a bunch of grapes and a person seeming to drink from a glass. The magazine Paris Match felt the need for the health warning before an article on a tourism festival held in Saumur, the International Festival of Wine and Books, because the article was illustrated with a wine glass etched with the logo of the festival.
Marie Christine Tarby of alcohol lobbying group Vins et Societe told me when I met up with her yesterday, ‘This is not even about the Evin Law anymore, this is just crazy.’
Other countries are taking notice also – an Australian website for orlandowines.com, owned by Pernod Ricard, will not let visitors enter its site if they declare they are from France, displaying a message which says, ‘Sorry. By law of your country you are not permitted to view the contents of this site.’ Other countries with similar interdictions are Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Respected wine writer Jacques Dupont wrote in Le Point this week, ‘The entire world envies us our wines as an intrinsic part of the French art de vivre... How can we on the one hand celebrate our fine wines, and then treat those who produce them like drug dealers?’
Among the other things he says are that on July 10 of this year, UMP politician (from the Bordeaux region) Paul Cesar requested an amendment to the current Evin law to include the internet as an allowable medium. The request was refused. I know that Sakorzy is in the Jura today and will be given the letter from the winemakers direct asking him to rethink this omission (I wrote about this the other day) - it seems unbelievable that he hasn't acted yet.
A tourism conference is taking place in Bordeaux this week, and wine is given as the second most important reason for tourists to visit France.
As Dupont says, wine makes 6 billion euros for the country every year, second most important earner after the aeronautical industry. It employs over 420,000 people, it helps maintain the beauty of the countryside and its heritage, it respects the environment. The government speaks about helping winemakers increase the exports of their product abroad - but how can they say wine is good overseas but terrible in their own country? 'A banned product, demonised in its country of origin, can not succeed on the export markets for very long,' says Jean Michel Chardronnier (Bordeaux winemaker, ex president of VinExpo and of CVBG negociants).
He also points out that the anti-alcohol lobby is sometimes a little liberal with the facts. Apparently, for a driving death to be attributed to drink, it is only necessary for the person who died to have consumed alcohol - even if the driver hadn't had a drop. And the statistics that say France drinks 54 litres per head of alcohol each year is arrived at by simply dividing the amount of wine sold in France each year by the number of people in the cuntry - ignoring the 80 million tourists who come each year. It has been estimated that the actual consumption per head is aorund 10 litres less than officially attributed, so aorund 44 litres per head.
He finishes the excellent five page article with a reminder to Sarkozy of a stop on his election campaign in Sancerre, when he said, 'The compare wine to tobacco or to a drug is a mistake... Wine is not simply an economic activity, but part of our tradition, our identiy, our savoir-faire.'
