Vin

France without wine would be like America without Bud Light... or maybe America without burgers?  It's far more than a beverage - wine is ingrained in the culture, is part of daily life and is as much part of the French identity as fashion or the 35 hour work week.

This fact helped explain a lot of the quirky facts about wine production in France.  

Just about anywhere in the New World, wine is a beverage, and like any beverage, entrepreneurs have the right to make it where and how they want, market it and charge whatever price they please.  They typically don't enjoy government subsidies either - why would they?  If anything, wine is taxed at a premium because of its alcohol content.

But, because its national status, wine is more a means than an end in France.  Wine producers are the small-town heroes of France, maintaining traditions and culture that urbanites like to visit on the weekends but not actually commit themselves to.  Most producers can point to ancestors in the 17th or 18th century who made wine from the very same plot of land.  Wine is not about marketing or process - it is about the characteristics of the earth, the terroir.  Many producers make no more than a few thousand bottles of wine - it is literally made and bottled in their garages.  This is the stuff of Subaru-driving, sustainable-locally-sourced-organic farmers market legends. 

Unfortunately for these producers, however, their wine is usually not very good, nor is it very cheap.  The best of French wine dominates auctions around the world.  The middle of the market holds its own too.  But there is an enormous glut of not particularly good wine, that isn't particularly cheap, and why would anyone want to buy that stuff when there is perfectly good wine coming out of Chile, Argentina or South Africa for half the price and twice the quality?  Well, the French believe you should support the local farmers, and they do, by buying the wine or at least paying to turn the wine into ethanol.  But consumers outside of France - and especially in the UK, Nordic Countries and US - well, they don't really care.

This is why I felt two powerful and intensely conflicting emotions as we drove through wine country.  Part of me thought it was all so quaint, charming, romantic.  And then the other part of me - the part of me trained to care about efficiency and money - thought it was incredibly bureaucratic, inefficient, and an enormous waste of resources.  

As a French wine producer, you are less an entrepreneur than an arm of the state.  You cannot choose what to grow, or where to grow it, or how to take care of the vines, or even necessarily how to price it or market it.  It is a quasi-state monopoly designed to protect the mediocre at the expense of the best.  And, unsurprisingly, it does not create a tremendous amount of value for consumers (here is more from the BBC).  The New World continues to gain share at the expense of the old, a trend that's unlikely to be reversed any time soon.

Maybe the timing of my visit was good.  With the looming fiscal crisis in France as elsewhere, it's an open question of how France can continue to preserve this way of life for others to enjoy.  But, until then, enjoy the throwback to an earlier time and visit the castles, medieval village, and charming vineyards of French wine country.

The label hasn't changed in generations - because it's regulated by the state.