But not quite the same as in the US. Drunk driving has long been a problem here and in recent years the government has started to implement policies to crack down on the problem. As someone familiar with the problem in America - my brother and a few years later, my best friend from high school were killed by drunk drivers - the attitude in France seemed to be decades behind the US. Today it's improving in France though programs for designated drivers and related cultural changes are still in their infancy. Besides the driving problem, doctors are now being instructed on the dangers of alcohol consumption. In the end, the local wine industry is going to have to modernize and compete in a global market and the government is going to have to influence social change.
Today, every advertisement for wine in the French press, whether it be for Château Lafite or Dom Pérignon champagne, has to carry the warning notice, “L’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé, consommez avec modération.” (Alcohol misuse is dangerous for your health, consume moderately.)As an outsider I shake my head in disbelief at how they can take such nice products - products with character as opposed to the monolithic and forceful New World tastes that have infected France as well - and blow a previously dominate position.
All wine bottled for sale in France now has to carry an image of a pregnant woman with a prohibitive line through it. Any form of alcohol-related sponsorship by even the smartest champagne company is banned. And it is thought so likely that internet advertising of wine will also be forbidden that some important sites, such as Orange.fr, are reported to have been refusing to take wine-related ads.
As if to rub salt in the wound, the French government recently circulated a brochure to French doctors, based on the national cancer research institute’s report on alcohol and risk late last year, which recommends total abstinence from wine.
Ten days ago French politicians voted on a healthcare bill that put a stop to the so-called “open bar” phenomenon, whereby unlimited supplies of alcohol are poured – particularly to students who pay a small ticket price for the privilege of getting slammed at a brand owner’s expense. Wine producers were concerned that one effect of this bill could be that they would no longer be allowed to serve tasting samples in their cellars and at trade fairs.
In fact, the health minister Roselyne Bachelot, whose own constituency is in the heart of Muscadet country, made a last-minute exception for professional wine tastings. But it is a reflection of the current anti-wine climate in France that the majority of vignerons genuinely thought it possible there would be an outright ban on what for many of them is the only sales technique they know.
