LE BUGUE, France, June 26 (UPI) -- Take a plastic gallon flagon down to the wine warehouse of Julien de Savignac in Le Bugue and fill it up like gasoline from a vast steel container with the local red, white or rosé wine. It will cost less than the equivalent amount of bottled water -- though as a drink it obviously serves a different refreshment purpose. And it will be perfect for quaffing at an informal meal.
Throughout France there are "Caves" like Julien de Savignac that cater to both the high end and the very high end -- I've seen bottles at $4,397 being sold to otherwise normal-looking individuals -- as well as the very low end in the wine line. The carefully tended fields throughout this region running west to Bordeaux are dedicated to vines, marching in tidy regulated rows along the valleys and up the lush foothills of the area.
But to the dismay of the French, they may very well have to dig some of these vineyards up and stop making wine aimed at the cheaper limit of the market. Along with the Italians, they have been turning out so much poor-quality wine it has either been kept off the market or turned -- at considerable extra expense -- into fuel.
Responsible for the glut are generous EU subsidies that encouraged the wine-growers to produce the wine in the first place. Yet the European Union is so concerned at the increasing size of its wine lake, it is prepared to make further payments to wine growers to destroy their vines.
For years now, it has spent $637 million a year keeping European wine-growing viable. Europe produces 60 percent of the world's wine; 3.4 million hectares support 1.5 million wine-makers.
But despite the accumulated wine expertise you imagine would result from this, quality at the mainstream and lower level has not kept pace with wines developed in the New World.
Though exports of French wines over the past 15 years are up by 20 percent, exports of wines from the United States have gone up four times and from Chile and Argentina by 19 percent. At the value-for-money end of the market, their wines are distinctly better. Comfortably subsidized, the French have been merrily processing grapes from years of poor climate whose resulting wine simply didn't meet expectations promised by some of the familiar labels. The unpretentious wines from the massive steel casks filling the plastic gallon flagons are far better value.
Last week EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fisher Boel announced that 400,000 hectares of vines will be destroyed and 300 million liters of wine poured down the drains. The EU will soften the blow to the winegrowers' pockets a little with payouts of some $3.09 billion. But it won't help soften the blow to their pride.
Should you find yourself with some gut-rot or leftover wine, make this quick take on Coq au Vin that is all the better for not being loaded down with mushrooms and onions and bacon.
-- 8 chicken pieces
-- 6 ripe tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and roughly chopped
-- 1/2 pint red wine
-- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
-- 1/2 pint chicken stock
-- handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
-- 2 tablespoons olive oil
-- 2 ounces butter
-- salt and pepper to taste
-- Heat the olive oil and the butter in a heavy bottomed pan and when golden, brown the chicken pieces in it until they are gold all over.
-- Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and keep stirring and frying until they become jammy, then pour in the wine and vinegar, scraping up the bottom of the pan and reduce the liquid until it is down to a tablespoonful.
-- Pour in the stock and simmer until that has reduced by half, then put in a warmed dish and sprinkle with the parsley.
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