MON DIEU! What have the French done to get up sensitive noses effectively than a pungent slice of ancient Brie? Last week on BBC's Food and Drink programme, Oz Clarke and Jilly Goolden lashed out at France for trumpeting mediocre wines. A few days later my colleague Kevin Myers, in An Irishman's Diary, lambasted the French wine industry for its arrogance, chauvinism and general inability to produce anything drinkable for £5-£6.
This has made me stomp around for the past few days, huffing and puffing and pouting and shrugging like my favourite filmstar-winemaker, Gerard Depardieu. I hold no brief for the French wine industry, heaven knows. The international diversity of the wines recommended week after week in this column is ample evidence of that. But there have often been terrific French bottles in there among them - even in the supposedly impoverished £5-£6 zone. Is this sudden burst of criticism just, I wonder? Is it even coming in the right decade?
Ten, maybe 15 years ago, there's no doubt that France was sitting back resting on her lauriers, not having to try too hard in the export markets she so comfortably dominated. The cheap stuff was thin and tannic (as was some of the not-so-cheap stuff), or confected and synthetic in the hands of some of the big brands. But gallic shrugs in order here - what could we expect for a few quid?
Paf! Along came the New World with luscious, fruit-driven wines - big flavours at low prices. As we seized them gleefully, sinking sales began to shake France out of her complacent torpor. Small, rarefied regions like Burgundy and Alsace would never be able to beat the newcomers on price, but with the right approach bigger ones like Bordeaux and the Midi might manage it. Especially the Midi. Somehow, it was realised, this vast sun-trap swathed in vineyards would have to stop producing abominable plonk and come up with the sort of wines export markets wanted at the sort of prices they were prepared to pay. New World winemakers turned up, in the early stages of this French revolution, to show how it could be done. It's years, now, since Languedoc-Roussillon began to turn out tasty wines at tempting prices, and more are appearing in our wine shops all the time. Why, the last time he was in Dublin, Oz Clarke singled out this very region as the best new bargain hot spot in the world.
For anybody who finds the various appellations or sub-sections within it too mentally taxing, there is an easier route to follow. Australian influence has induced the south of France to focus on varietals in the New World style - simply labelled Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and so on, after the grapes from which they're made. These wines in popular, easy-drinking styles tend to be produced in serious quantities by large companies. The Australian giant, BRL Hardy, has several ranges on the Irish market.
Fortant de France and Val d'Orbieu are other familiar names. There are recent signs of a trickle-down effect, with medium-sized concerns going the easy-to-follow varietal route and affixing English labels to their bottles like the export-minded big boys.
So simplicity is there, if you want it. But are you sure you do? Do we really need France to produce vast quantities of wine with the same, upfront, fruity characteristics as Chile or South Africa Is it such a huge chore to commit to memory the names of promising southern appellations like Corbieres, Faugeres, Fitou and Minervois, the Coteaux du Languedoc and the Cotes du RoussilIon before going out to forage? Is it such an overwhelming task to look afresh at white Bordeaux (now with countless good examples in our budget price bracket), or Bergerac, or Vouvray? All of these regions and others besides have proved themselves adept at getting the quality price ratio right.
There are hundreds and hundreds of properties, yes - all with or California or Australia (the last three of which, by the way, produce precious little that is palatable for under £6)? Or Romania, or Bulgaria, for that matter, if you really like that kind of thing? Or is there, perhaps, enough bland homogeneity in the wine world already?
I'm on the side of reasonable quality allied with individuality - something France is pretty good at - rather than mass production. I want to enjoy wines with distinctive flavours - which often means wines made from interesting combinations of local grapes, different names, and all producing very different wines. Complicated, maybe but it's often the smaller producers - the passionate individualists - who come up with the most exciting tastes. Some of the best produce their wines in quantities too limited to satisfy the thirst of your average Irish supermarket chain, incidentally, but you'll find them in good off-licences. When you strike on some that you like, it's worth stretching the grey matter a little further, I suggest, to remember their names so that you can snap them up again. Vive la France, in all her glorious gastronomic complexity! Slamming the door on French wine is as limiting and pointless as threatening to eat no other cheese but Cheddar.