French wines are being hurt, due in some part to U.S. wine critic, Robert Parker and his thirst for boosting huge, fruity, high-alcohol and non-French style wines. It has made it difficult for French wines to succeed in America, and of late many fine, small estates may be going out of business. New drunk-driving laws around the world have not helped wine sales as well.
It is necessary to aggressively promote France’s good value regional wines from the Midi, Rhône, Alsace, Beaujolais, Corsica and Bordeaux that fortunately are being met with great enthusiasm in Tokyo, Seoul, Warsaw, New York and Moscow.
France is hindered by too many rules and regulations, whereas new world wines are free to do what they want including using any name for brand building. It is the beginning of the end of the négociant system in France, it’s crumbling rapidly.
The real killer is that grapes today cost too much to grow.
