When does a "harmless" drink before dinner become a "harmful" addiction? This week we take a closer look at the curse of alcoholism and efforts to curb its impact.
French exports of wine and spirits hit a record €10 billion in 2011, a 10.5% annual increase, the Federation of Wine and Spirits Exporters said Tuesday. The federation said demand had been on the rise worldwide, particularly in Asia.
La Percée du Vin Jaune (the opening of the yellow wine) is one of France’s most important wine festivals and is held every year during the first weekend of February. This year around 30,000 visitors and amateurs of this legendary and unique yellow wine from France’s Jura region gathered to celebrate and taste the new vintage.
Gérard Depardieu is a "bon vivant" in real life and on screen; in one of his most recent films, "Grenouille d’hiver", he plays a wine grower. We discover the vineyard he owns in real life.
Some call it bubbly, some call it fizz... but almost all of us know it as champagne. Sparkling wine producers from the Champagne region here in France are spending millions each year to ensure their product is the only wine that is labelled as champagne. And as we found out, they're willing to stretch the principle to other products, including even perfume.
There are now over 40 vineyards in Paris and around 150 others in the surrounding Ile de France region, thanks to a revival in wine-growing activity over the past 20 years. We went to meet some of these wine growers.
In this edition of Beyond Business, we ask if French farmers and wine growers are carrying a heavier burden than their Spanish peers. This follows claims that French rules on pesticides are much stricter. Some farmers flout the rules, and those who abide by them say they're being weighed down.
After designer handbags, perfumes and tablet computers, the latest global success story to fall victim to Chinese counterfeiting is French wine. The process is easy, a vender tells FRANCE 24, and most customers don’t seem able to tell the difference.
In today's international papers - did News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks order the hacking of teenage murder victim Milly Dowler's phone herself? The political fallout grows from those shocking revelations - while in the US journalists point out that even if Strauss-Kahn's accuser lied in the past, that doesn't mean she wasn't raped.
French winemakers are gradually giving in to global marketing trends, focussing on grape type rather than the region of production. Though it may boost sales worldwide, in a country with a proud wine tradition, this shift is hard to swallow.
