If You Can't Drink 'Em, Wear 'Em

France, as anyone who follows the wine business knows, is in trouble. Too many grapes, too much wine, and not enough drinkers at home and abroad, or perhaps not enough people willing to pay for French wine. Used to getting assistance from the government over all sorts of things, winegrowers are throwing tantrums and beating their chests in an effort to save their livelihood. We must be a little understanding. After all they are hobbled by the rules of an outdated and draconian appellation system and by utterly inane government policy which prevents them from advertising wines using modern technology like photography.

However, if winegrowers would simply be open to shifting their focus a little, they could all do fantastically in the cosmetics business.

From Luxist this morning I learned that by far one of the best things to do with surplus wine grapes, especially Champagne grapes, is to turn them into face cream.

Stop all this rioting in the streets and MOISTURIZE!

Posted by: Alder on May 28, 2005 12:14 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Ramblings and Rants , Wine News

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Comments (5)

Bob Spahn wrote:

05.28.05 at 3:35 PM

Ha! That's a boost for the cosmetics industry.

Anonymous wrote:

05.30.05 at 9:03 AM

About your comments about french winemakers rioting in the south : Winemakers may seem homogenous from afar , but the people demonstrating ( and occasionally burning cars )are among the disminishing proportion of french vignerons still bringing their grapes to coops and practicing high yields of cheap wines . Putting all wine producers behind these noisy agitated people is misleading ( I know you're conscious of the very different products made around here , but some other bloggers or foreign journalists are too happy to have another occasion to indulge in generalizations and french-bashing . The wine makers here are very diverse and I would say most have improved their philosophy and exigence ( there are indeed many things to change, beginning with these tough rules )...

Anonymous wrote:

05.31.05 at 12:43 PM

I appreciate the revolutionary spirit; it is a healthy excercise of dissatisfaction and builds character and morale....a strong, life- long bond will exist for the participants in this outrage and it will clense the pallete(in this case, a winemakers soul)...the rich have to much money and power and this country we live in is growing more fascist each day...its a damn banana republic around here and the intelligence level is extrememly low. People in this country don't have the balls or enough friends(enter TV, automobile, divorce, fast food) to even think about rioting or standing- up (Malcolm X style). Long- live the french revolutionaries and more power to them....let it burn! and if you want a anti- MBA/anti- corporate producer from Cali, try andrew lane wines, Zinfandel/Gamay/Sangiovese/Vin Gris...... by the glass at the Left Bank, San Mateo. www.ALwines.com they were the original frog's leap before the label was stolen in broad day light= the court-of-law in 1982

Jason wrote:

06.07.05 at 5:56 PM

Um, What?

As far as freedoms go, the US is far ahead of France. Infact it's expressly discussed on this topic how the French government is taking too strong a role in the winemaking. France is going down, let's let them this time. Everywhere else is making wine just as good.

Anonymous wrote:

06.11.05 at 5:21 PM

the people, the people of france..... the french people recognize their position, their lack of power. The rich get richer, an average rate of 8.2% per year.

What else can they do to be heard? I respect this poetic display of dis- satisfaction by the french people, the working man.....as american mono- culture and the 'international style' moves in.

I would agree with you that French wines are going down, but don't blame the people.....the leadership is out-of-touch

As for our country, we watch so much TV, fast food, divorce, and have adopted a comfort level that encourages an (dysfunctional) overlay of fear....we have become blind and apethetic......corporations write the law, they always have. Hell, there is more lawyers in one building in Seattle than the entire country of France.

And small wineries in the USA are still forced to use a distributor in order to sell their wines on the grocery store shelves.

The middle man gets paid first......and that means the lawyers too (and our system is built on this premise, that the small man, the small business does not have the means to garner proper legal counsel)or out-of-state distributors for that matter.

We are not free, I would actually offer the opinion that our minds have been imprisoned to larger degree than many european communities.