Over the years I learned, through trial and error, that cheap French wine hardly ever compares favorably with wine from New Zealand and Australia at the same price point. More recently it's become true of Spanish wine, too.
I don't know whether it's because the French export their worst wine (or perhaps I just have no taste), but since the French themselves are drinking less of it, I can't help but think that complacency has crept in somewhere.
Me and the wife went on hols to the Bordeux region a few years ago. Whilst there I conducted a highly scientific experiment. When we didn't eat out we bought a few bottles of say EUR1.5-3.0 red plonk from the nearest supermarket. I can exclusively reveal my results of this anecdote along with a few others (anecdotes):
* I can sink at least two bottles of Bordeaux region cheap supermarket wine with virtually zero after effects the next day
* I cannot sink at least two bottles of any wine from say Tesco without suffering the next day (I'm GB based)
There are quite a few caveats here but in general I'm actually going to allow for the rumour that them there froggies actually know what they are doing: they make bloody good wine - instinctively. Whatever we get here is broken in some way.
I will continue my investigation and attempt to come to a conclusion - hic
That would be higher dosage of SO2. It stabilize the wine and export producers of cheap-ish wines want to be extra sure the bottles dont go bad on shelves or by incorrect storage. Bottles for local consuption dont require this extra "protection".
What can be called wine and what not differs between countries. The cheapest wine is often a mix of material from a grape plant half fermented to be mixed with water, alcohol and sulfite to create and bottle the "wine" in the country of destination. I imagine that kind of thrash is not allowed to be sold inside France.
> In theory the UK is still part of Europe as is France, so we should get the same kind of wine as consumers.
No, France is still allowed to be even more picky than EU regulations require. Same goes for what can be called "baguette" in- and outside France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguette
Why do you think you should get the same kind of wine locally as consumers in the UK? There are so many factors here that could affect the quality and selection.
French wine I've purchased in the US has never been anything but disappointing. Italy, Spain, and S. America are far better values.
However, I once spent a week in Paris buying mostly the cheapest not-obvouisly-bad wine I could find, down to 3€ a bottle, and all of it was really, really good, which, given my experience with French imports to the US, surprised me. I suspect that 1) markup on French wine shipped to the US is much higher than other imported wines, and 2) a lot of what is shipped at this markup isn't the best stuff at its French price point to begin with.
Or it's probably that your definition of good wine has been shaped by new world style expectations of what wine should/can be.
Old world and especially French wines are generally more neutral and restrained wines, made to be consumed with food.
Also a very high percentage of low and mid-tier wines made in the 'international' style are more like a composed semi-synthetic product made to conform to a rather homogenous consumer preference, and altered with flavourings/additives[1], esthers, enzymes, etc. than the classic definition of an 'authentic' wine (even if that itself is kind of bullshit).
So I collect wine and have a lot of winemaker friends and not one would even think of using this. The Wikipedia article lacks any proof for its numbers. There is one link to a story that is an interview with 2 people who would be named to say they use it.
I also make (have a 1/2 acre vineyard of my own) and collect wine and know wine makers. Yes none of them would use it. But they're not working for Gallo etc.
I am pretty sure the practice is mostly non-existent in Europe. At least in appellation wines.
But when people complain that low-cost wines are better in the new world, my experience is that they are invariably referring to the fact that they can get a consistent fruit forward 'shiraz' for $13 but when they taste a cheap French wine it's nothing like that.
I have found in the last couple of years some makers have started to move to more of a French style. In the world of whites, the cougar juice is giving way to a better old world style wine.
I agree there are some suspect fruit bombs out there that people think wine should taste like. I hope that is changing.
Do you have some beginner-friendly links on what is and not allowed in French winemaking. I've always thought I'm paying only for the "Frenchness" and not anything specific about the winemaking process itself.
E.g., kinda like the German beer-making standard vs. "anything goes" Belgian-style ales.
I did a home exchange with a family in Pays Beaujolais several years ago. We tried the local Vin Cooperative and for 4 (eur) got some very ordinary wine - I was expecting much better.
Then our exchange family told us to go direct to a local vineyard where they bottled their own (1 km away from coperative). The same 4 euros per bottle was gorgeous - and they had a lovely white which was still relatively new for them! We bought a case which was all we could fit into our suitcases for return flight...
We asked how they sold, and they sent half their produce to the Cooperative for cash flow (where it was mixed in to improve the other rubbish presumably), and then bottled the rest themselves and sold direct. Over the years they had built a steady clientele. They did say that with taxes and transport other costs, the price went up 4x or more for end user.
French living in Japan here. I think the same happens in the US: they use "French" like a trademark to sell random shit. If you are going to buy a 5-10$ bottle, all that the "French" label will bring is an increase in price but not quality.
Chilean and Australian wines are what I drink here when I go for a cheap bottle. Still, I feel like they add some kind of preservative in wines here, even good ones. There is an aftertaste I dont get with wines (even cheap ones) in France.
But yes, complacency is also a factor. Wines are getting better everywhere and foreign wine compete favorably in the cheap range.
Now I am just hoping that one day they will compete in cheese and that I can buy some at the local supermarket without having a 5x multiplier because of the "french" label.
As someone who worked within the Food Industry for 10 years in SEA Region.
Yes, because Anything from France sells. And we are finally seeing some consumers realizing the quality they are getting. I still think we are still 10+ years away from ending this French premium pricing mark up.
More Importantly, the French knows of this as well. And from my experience the pricing of French (export) product fluctuate alot. For the same product I could get it 2-3x cheaper from Japan trade, ( France to Japan then Ship to other region ) then buying it directly from France. ( With less volume, but the difference shouldn't be that big )
Then there is the trader. Lots of French Product company dont do export themselves. They have deals with some Trading company, acting as their Export branch. Reasons because they dont have to deal with many export regulations, no need to hire someone to speak English or other languages. But these trading companies tend to make a mess sometimes when they are selling to lots of places with different pricing.
We are a very good country for cheese, with a lot of variety. But nobody outside the country goes shopping for the fancy Australian cheeses and so I don't think you will see many of them in even the specialty shops.
I have never tried their blue cheese. I found some blue cheese sold at Aeon that are decent.
As for the camembert, I have no idea why they call it that way. Unless I did get particularly bad ones at my supermarket, this is really different. Very little taste, closer to a brie actually.
When in Australasia, I tend to agree with you on the quality compared to price however I do find that if you go to a decent boutique wine shop and have a chat, they'll have good european bottles around the $15-30 mark that, in my opinion, are extremely good for value (i.e. something I might pay €6/7 in France from a wine sellers). Avoid NZ/AU supermarket prices and selection at all cost!
That's odd advice- the selection and prices at Dan Murphy's (liquor retailer owned by supermarket chain Woolworths) are far superior to any boutique I've seen, plus they have regular tastings so you can decide for yourself.
I've found price and quality poorly correlated with Aussie wines: the big brands are cheap and unexciting but very dependable, while small producers tend to be expensive and wildly inconsistent.
I admit I'm an awful wine snob: I can't drink cheap, mass-produced wine and I love inconsistency - I'm happy to be disappointed on occasion when more often that not, with the guidance of an experienced wine shop owner, I'm going to get something exciting from a small producer.
While Dan Murphy's range might on the surface seem comparable to say, Sydney's Oak Barrel: if you know you want a non-typical French red (say, not a Bordeaux blend or Bourgogne pinot noir), the latter has a truly wider selection away from the generic, sellable reds. Plus, the staff are crazy knowledgeable and I often walk in saying "I want something great for $20" and they'll honestly get me the best available in that price range.
It's complicated, but in the simplest terms it means that more than one grape variety is used. Blends can be co-fermented or fermented separately and blended after the fact (the most common).
Cheers, that's very interesting! I guess fermenting separately makes a lot of sense, then you get to control the taste by blending the two in different amounts.
Those Spanish wines that are made to look French and fool the consumer with their lavender fields etc as described in the article... Winemakers are blaming the Spanish, but there's also the French grocery stores to blame: why put the French and Spanish wines on the same shelf? Are they trying to confuse consumers because the margins on Spanish wines are much higher ?
Here in the US, nearly all wine stores I've been to sorts wine per type (red, white, etc) for local wines and have a specific foreign section "France", "Australia", etc. Even regular grocery stores tend to do this too.
If groceries chains did this in France, consumers would then rarely buy the Spanish wines unintentionally.
I don't think the winemakers would have a hard time lobbying for at least forcing grocery stores to display foreign wines in a clearly labeled section.
> why put the French and Spanish wines on the same shelf
Are you sure they actually do that? I've been to a few supermarkets in France and wine was predominantly organised by French region. I can't imagine they'd slip these bottles in to one of those sections.
EDIT: Found photos of sections like "wine between 3 and 4 EUR". Either times have changed or I hadn't seen a representative sample when I visited :)
Also, I don't find a perfectly legible "Vin de la Communeauté Européenne" label particularly deceptive. It's also a 1L bottle - hardly the sign of a good wine.
You're right that the stores probably play a role here. However in a typical supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it would made little sense as most the wine comes from the country anyway.
Conning customers with fake logos (for organic food for example) and misleading packaging is a very common thing. The law forbid to use some regional names[1] but creating some fake "Château Mytho" brand with the origin of the product writing in yellow 4pt font size is still totally legal.
Some of this stuff is even legally organized. For example the "organic food" label of the European Union allows up to 5% non-organic in the product. The domestic label was then changed to match the European one, now allowing some "accidental" GMO.
> However in a typical supermarket bottle are not separated by origin: it would made little sense as most the wine comes from the country anyway.
Do mean not separated by origin country? I thought they're mostly separated by French/area region, though? You couldn't slip one of the Spanish wines in to those sections.
Though I just googled photos of carrefour and found a photo of sections like "vin entre 3 EUR et 4 EUR". That kind of layout could easily intermingle non-French wine
A Coca-Cola Zero soft drink in a French restaurant in Paris (France) is typically 5 to 6 euro per 50 cl (even in "normal" restaurants, not in the Champs-Élysées nor the Eiffel Tower), while in Barcelona or Madrid (Spain) is 1.50 to 2 euro, being exactly the same product. So go figure with wine, or buying a lunch (2x-3x more expensive in Paris than in Madrid or Barcelona). In my opinion, that will be good for French people: they already do massive near-dumping with milk production because of their high productivity/efficiency, and they'll have to learn how to be efficient producing wine and fruits.
I only see nebulous claims of wines not being produced to French standards. Is there anything more specific? Maybe the French standards are wrong is Spanish originating wines are selling so well and even at similar price points.
Don't underestimate the emotional response from the people who've done this their entire life with the cumulated savoir-faire and effort of several generations. The grape is a huge cultural thing here.
(Disclaimer: I'm french and had said emotional reaction. I don't even particularly like wine)
It depends on appellation. Some regions and sub regions have rules that gives them hard time producing cheap wines: things like irrigation will increase your yields, some places have limits on maximum yields or ban of mechanical harvest.
All of those rules make sense in producing better wines, but it make it hard to compete on price.
> “We can produce the wine at lower cost because salaries are less,”
And also in many cases, because illegal immigrants, who work in these vineyards, are treated in such poor conditions, close to slavery, that salaries can not be matched without breaking labor laws.
As a french who grew up in wine-producing counties, I hardly ever saw immigrants working on the fields; it's most of the time high school students wanting to make a good buck during summer vacation; the rest of the time the winegrower handles it alone. Also, many winegrowers (in france) work in cooperativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winemaking_cooperative
Would second that. I've worked in vineyards at the end of summer in the Bourgogne region, never come across any foreign illegal workers there. It would be students and temporary workers from the area.
This is my experience as well, as the grand-child of a French winemaking coop member/owner.
Regarding the harvest in particular, there used to be a tradition where people who came to help would be compensated with food and drinks at the end of the day, rather than a salary. Not sure if that's still the case now that mechanical harvesting is so common. At least I don't think one would have to pay to experience hand-picking, like some fancy American wineries require.
During many years there have been lots of Spanish workers going to France to work on the vineyards on season. Maybe that have changed but Spanish were the cheap temporary workers of the French vineyards.
The root of the problem is over production in both France and Spain (and Italy) in bulk wine and lower tier of everyday wines, combined with lowering consumption in all of those traditional wine consuming countries.
Production of these wines are not very labor intensive: harvest is done mechanically, pruning is semi automated and most of the other operations are either not done or automated. All of those vineyards use irrigation to increase yields. Those are not very interesting wines, but we are talking about approx. 0.5 euros per litre (when buying in bulk) wines.
It is not that they can't compete against it, they just want to make sure they have market for themselves as it is saturated.
We already have, not if you are France or Italy of course. I do own quite some land, but I was not able to plant in there, because of quota.
70% of wine consumption in Czech republic have to be imported and we were not allowed to plant new vineyards. The rules changed last year and we can plant up to 1% of our allowed area now. Still not enough.
Because of EU enforced quota. Even if your land is in vineyard apellation place you can't plant any new vineyard. This rule was enforced as we were joining the union, it is basically way to ensure big producing countries with over production have enough of market to sell their product.
Local producers are able to sell all of their wines without much problem and there is demand for more, but there is nothing we can do about it. Prices of vineyard land did grow 400% over last 10 years and there is huge consolidation going on. Not great place to be independent winemaker with expansion plans.
Is that very low? 4€/hour at 8h/day, 22 days/month is 700€/month. I don't know how are the salary levels in Italy, but that's quite a bit more than the minimum wage in Portugal, and only slightly less than the minimum wage in Spain at the time.
While both describe some incredibly poor working conditions, neither suggest that illegal immigrants are large factor. The UC Davis piece says that it existed but the numbers were exaggerated, the Guardian piece says there might be 100,000 in a labor force of 23 million.
> Those who are enslaved are exploited for the financial gain of their captors. The vulnerable are made to work in cruel conditions for long hours without pay. Examples include women and girls forced into prostitution for profit, young boys made to commit criminal acts against their will and men kept in slave-like conditions in factories.
> Last year there was a total of 3805 recorded victims of modern slavery in the UK, a 17% increase on the year before. Victims came from 108 different countries, with the top 3 being Albania, the UK and Vietnam (find out more on the Resources page).
> In 2016 the most common types of exploitation for adults and children in the UK, where known, were labour exploitation and sexual exploitation. Individuals in the UK are exploited for labour in various places of work, from hotels to farms, boats to building sites and nail bars to cannabis factories. Labour exploitation spans the agricultural, hospitality, fishing and construction sector. In addition, people are exploited for sexual purposes, including forced prostitution, escort work and pornography.
This article highlights the real downside to progressive globalization and a major reason for the recent rise of populism (Trump, Brexit, etc). The populist message of "bringing back the good 'ol days" is an impossibility but the underlying economic frailty of large swaths of people is very real.
While typically a free market fan, I do believe the pendulum has swung too far towards globalism in the last couple of decades. In general, this has vastly improved the lives of millions of very poor families in developing nations - but at a significant cost to families like blue collar Americans, leaving millions feeling that they're being left behind by technological progress, foreign labor, and politics/media that increasingly focuses on the "glamorous" US coastal cities. This is a gross oversimplification of the myriad of intertwined issues but this is the general perception for a lot of people.
We'd better figure out how to address this perception and begin to work on tangible solutions soon or this type of violent response may only be the tip of the iceberg.
I'd say that globalization often causes losses for the poorest and gains for the richest, but that overall it increases the amount of wealth coming into the country.
Therefore ending globalization would help the poor at the expense of the rich, but you could also just take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Since globalization brings more money into the country overall there must be some level of redistributive taxation that makes globalization better than non-globalization.
Don't forget that there are gains to trade. It's not just redistributive; more people are making more stuff (aka creating wealth). The pie gets bigger. The risk is that some people's slice gets smaller, even in absolute terms.
Poor people who are still employed also gain from globalization, because their inputs become cheaper.
Above all, too high a rate of change is what causes dislocation and destroys lives, when large segments of the population are left without valuable skills.
Yes, but shrinking the pie means that finite resources such as housing (land) becomes cheaper. Even if my piece of pie gets smaller in absolute terms I might still be better off than before because the price of housing and domestic services have gone down.
Let's not forget that despite the improvement to the lives of the poorest people in the world, the gap between the richest and the poorest has never been greater.
The wealth in the world exists for everyone to have a decent life.
But as long as the middle class thinks the poor is their enemy, we will stagnate.
I am deeply pessimistic about the next 10-50 years. Historically, situations like this led to revolutions, and recalibrations. But when the problem is "I can't afford the newest iPhone", not "I can't afford a loaf of bread", people are not inspired to really demand change. I think everyone is too satiated and complacent, which is why Brexit and Trump happen and the US/UK will get worse before things get better.
Regarding inequalities within countries, things used to be bad that way in 1900-1920 with low taxes, then up to the 70s tax rates on the rich went up to 80 or 90%+ which reduced inequality and then that ended with Thatcher/Reagan being voted in but a high tax regime could be voted back in if people want it.
You compared the effects on "millions" of global poor vs. "millions" of poor americans, but there are order of magnitudes difference in the size of those groups. Arguably the gains to the former is also greater than the losses (the rural poor of south and east Asia gained food security, the stakes are not nearly that high for the American poor).
That's an interesting theory, but globalism is not the problem. The problem is that wealthy people aren't taxed as much as poor people. What the world needs is wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor. Check out the writings of Thomas Piketty, who has studied these issues at great length.
Thomas Piketty made some grand assumptions and shouldn't be considered to have all the answers despite what the media would have you think.
Your simple analysis might make the inequality metrics look better but seriously take a step back and think about all the things that are out of whack that could contribute to it.
Who's to say it's not all the debt that has been built up that siphons money from the poor to the rich? Increasing taxes don't make the poor people's lives any better even though it makes you feel good because you get to stick it to the rich.
I also have to wonder where you get the idea that anything in economics is 'hard data', the world is a complex system, it's very rare for a simple answer to work.
But a simple answer will sell books and be easy to promote by the media and politicians. That's why we always hear simple answers, not because they work.
I worked in a wine shop for a while years ago. Occasional drinkers would always come in wanting French wine, but after trying Argentine malbecs or even American reds like those produced by Dave Phinney or say, K Syrah, would always prefer those over the few French wines they had tried.
Granted, this is all anecdotal, and I have had some great French wines (love that they are biodynamic as well for the most part), but to my eyes the wine market is really broadening. French wines just may not hold the mystique they once did.
Most new world wines like the ones you mentioned taste amazing as isolated sipping wines, but sometimes compete with food rather than complement it.
Most European wines shine when consumed with food, but they often do less well as sipping wines.
Note that these are broad-stroke comments, there are always exceptions, blah blah blah. That said, any skilled sommelier can serve you the archetypes as examples.
You're exactly right. I meant to add that to my comment. Euro wines do usually tend to really stand out with food, and really do pair well with it as you said. Good point.
"We can produce the wine at lower cost because salaries are less," said Juan Corbalán García, who represents the Agri-Food Cooperatives in Brussels. "But that doesn’t mean we’re doing unfair competition."
what? Do you mean actual wages individually getting lowered? That's probably rarer, but an effective race to the bottom of wages happens all the time, eg when they move the textile factory from the Carolinas to China then to Bangladesh.
That's more of a reaction to the race to the ceiling in wages that's going on in the background, ain't it?
They move from China to Bangladesh because competition from more productive industries makes Chinese wages grow faster than what garment manufacturing can support, don't they?
(I read that these days even cleaners get about 5 USD/h in the bigger cities. But that's not because cleaners are more productive, but because non-traded sectors get a case of Baumol's cost disease.)
Interesting how long it took the article to get to reporting what was supposedly "unfair" about the competition. And then it was pretty vague -- i.e. Spanish wine doesn't have to be grown by French rules.
Presumably readers are supposed to assume the French rules are somehow necessary. But Spain and many other countries seem capable of producing good wine at different price points. Maybe the French just have the wrong rules?
A greater understanding of the process and supply chain that affects the products going into our body will be for the best. For any wine, if it was clear where the grapes are grown, and where the wine was made, it'd give me greater confidence in the product. This is especially true if it's a value-oriented bottle.
french wines have AOC, like italian wines have DOC, and similar things exist elsewhere.
That basically only guarantees the origin of the grapes/wine, not quality, so it seems (generally) implicit that if a geographical indication is not present the wines are from "unspecified" locations, isn't that enough?
another interesting element of the wine trade across the eu was the ~2009 ruling on how rose could be produced
when i was working for a wine and spirits shop on the upper east side a controversial ruling was proposed in the eu(o)
it stated that rose wine, which was becoming a popular wine in the newish 'priced to drink' wine market, could subvert the costly precision of rose production, wherein for example one has to remove the skins at just the right time, with a simpler method of just mixing red and whites together
french wine producers were among the leaders in lobbying against the proposal
A piece of interesting trivia about the Languedoc region: its name literally means the place where people prononce "yes" as "oc" (well, "the 'oc' language"). It's as if Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas" were in a region named "the drawl zone"
Actually Occitan is now a dead language, and at the time it was current, nobody pronounced "yes" as "oui" yet either. But the name persists.
Occitan dialects still exist and are spoken. Some even argue that Catalan (in Spain) could be considered one these dialects, is mutually comprensible with some Occitan dialects, and it has quite a few speakers (4 million according to WP)
I don't know whether it's because the French export their worst wine (or perhaps I just have no taste), but since the French themselves are drinking less of it, I can't help but think that complacency has crept in somewhere.