Why France still makes the world's best wines - Slate Magazine
These are grim days for the French wine industry. It is hemorrhaging market share abroad, domestic consumption continues to plummet, and thousands of vintners are in desperate financial straits. Compounding the crisis, the appellation system that regulates much of French viticulture is a shambles, and French politicians are exhibiting bizarrely prohibitionist tendencies. The problems in France’s cellars and vineyards add up to, probably, the biggest wine story of the decade. (I even devote a chapter to the subject in the book I’ve just published.) Judging by all the dire headlines, one might well conclude that France is becoming a grape-soaked has-been. But don’t put a cork in the country just yet; despite its woes, France is still the wine world’s beacon and will surely remain so long into the future.
