French Wine Woes

[sparroa]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21929287
Consumption of wine is plummeting in France and traditionalists are upset. Society is changing and wine, once universally enjoyed, is a victim of rushed modern ways and overzealous slander from health authorities.
I see a lot of parallels with pipe tobacco in this article.
Granted, pipe smoking in English societies hasn't had the widespread cultural penetration/acceptance of wine drinking in France for several centuries...
Still, we share more similarities than differences on the road ahead with those that seek to preserve the traditions of wine.

 

[chawz]

I just read the same article before I saw your post and made the same correlation to pipes.

 

[sparroa]

"'It is our bourgeois, technocratic elite with their campaigns against drink-driving and alcoholism, lumping wine in with every other type of alcohol, even though it should be regarded as totally different,' he says."
"Recently I heard one senior health official saying that wine causes cancer 'from the very first glass'. That coming from a Frenchman. I was flabbergasted. In hock with the health lobby and the politically correct, our elites prefer to keep the country on chemical anti-depressants and wean us off wine."
Some of these quotes could almost be directly lifted from here on the forums. (Perhaps with less class references!)
The cigarette displaced the pipe in our drive for convenience and instant gratification.
Subsequently, officials have fought to demonize any and all forms of tobacco (as well as any and all doses) for the name of the public good. In the meantime, important parts of our culture have been lost and we are all consumed by stress - even to the point where neurotically worrying about our health harms it even more than if we just took it all in stride.
I think it is very pertinent that we monitor the struggles of our brothers-in-arms. The fortunes of the alcohol industry are very closely tied with the tobacco industry. Where I come from, taxes on both products were raised today because they are easy targets that nobody in our politically correct society wants to defend...