"French grape harvest withers on the vine"

[emad]

Following freak weather conditions in Europe this year, the French wine industry is warning of poor yields and predicting profitability downturn:

<snip>:

This year's French wine harvest could be the lowest in a decade, after a summer of storms and heatwaves, an official producers' agency has forecast. And while some have predicted that quality should be sufficiently strong that high prices will compensate for lost revenues, the Onivins association warned that nothing was guaranteed.
"The fragrance may occasionally leave something to be desired," Onivins said in a statement. The prediction is another blow to an industry already troubled by foreign competition.

France's strategy in recent years has been to focus on the high end of the market, where prices - especially for the highest quality grands crus - have been rising sharply. This year had been looking like a low-volume harvest ever since extreme heat hit France in July, but producers were always confident that quality could be good, or even exceptional. Onivins' latest estimates put the 2003 harvest at a total of 47.5 million hectolitres, well down on the 56.9 million averaged over the previous five years.

<snip>

More:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3177934.stm

Must be the power of Dubya's 'patriot fries'.......

[izzie]

1. May help Calif?

:thumbsup:

[realFedUp]

2. well, this doesn't help France at all

Suffering through heat and thousands of deaths and
now one of their mainstay crops dying...too much.