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Little This, Little That… by Tim McNally All the while wondering whether elected officials and candidates for elected office inhabit the same universe we citizens live in... Ya’ gotta love the French. Have you heard the tale about why the French, and Europeans in general, are more responsible drinkers than we colonists? You know, the fact that from a young age, they receive a little wine at the dinner table each night, while we uncouth barbarians suddenly have alcohol coming at us from all directions when we turn 21. And, therefore, they are more mature towards alcoholic beverages, possess more tolerance, and can “hold” their liquor better. Not so fast, bourbon-breath. Seems the French are having a pretty big problem with binge-drinking among their own offspring: French kids are drinking pretty heavily even before they are 16. Before you get too excited about the decline of western civilization, 16 is the legal drinking age in France. Some government types want to raise that to 18. Tu quoi!! There has been a 50% increase in the number of children, age 15 and under, admitted to hospitals for over-indulging in alcoholic beverages over the last four years. Alain Rigaud, president of ANPAA, an anti-alcoholism group, said, “Binge drinking is not just an Anglo-Saxon problem anymore.” Welcome to the real world, Sherlock. Changes to laws are in the works. France has already outlawed alcohol beverage advertising on the internet. Heineken brought the matter to court, but the prohibitionists prevailed. Heineken’s point was not about whether advertising beer is an okay activity in a civilized society, but rather, how do you keep spirits’ advertising off the internet, a medium that has no borders or overall governing body, and only in France? The courts decided that if the internet connection servers were based in France, they could not feature alcohol beverage advertising. That whooshing sound you hear is the noise made by French internet providers heading for offshore operations. In truth, the per capita consumption of adult beverages in France has fallen over the past several years. France has the world’s toughest restrictions on wine and spirits advertising, and those are coupled with some really onerous laws about drinking and driving. It’s not surprising that the home of some of the finest wines in the world is seeing a decline in consumption. Keep in mind that wine is not only a very important product in France, contributing millions of Euros into the public treasuries and employing tens of thousands of French folks, but wine has also been a part of the social fabric of the country since before the days when Caesar conquered the Gauls. Incroyable! The Italians - different but not by much. Recent scandals regarding what is being put into the Brunello wines of Montalcino in Tuscany have prompted the producers of that esteemed area to ask the membership of the wine-producing organizations if they want to open up the vaunted wine product to other varietals in the blend, which now is not allowed under law. The producers not surprisingly have overwhelmingly voted "No!" They want to keep the production code to allow only the Brunello grape, which is a local version of Sangiovese, the dominant red grape in Tuscany. Keeping the status quo makes sense, except that for years, winemakers in this area have been accused of adulterating their wines with other grapes, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah. The whole matter came to a head when the U.S. Customs Agency refused to allow any more shipments of Brunello into this country until the wines were proven to be made only with Brunello grapes. That’s right. It’s a crazy world. The U.S. is taking strict measures to make the Italians obey their own laws. More than 6500 liters of wine were confiscated. Of that, over 1000 liters were declassified, meaning they had some other grape in the blend and thus could not be labeled Brunello, and more than 4500 liters are still confiscated. But the producers said NO to change, even though many of their own had been changing illegally and without permission.   I guess it’s no fun skirting the law if everyone is going to do it. Read More   More Articles... The Proof Blunder Down Under Old World Rioja...Ole << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >> Page 1 of 31