EU Whine About Wine
Not long ago, I posted about American wines' superiority versus French wines. Then I had added my opinion that over-regulation actually harms French (and really, European) wines in general and makes quality a problem. And quality, after all, is crucial for competition.
Now I read this news about Brussels trying to make European wines more competitive in the global wine market. Hm!
No matter how hard Brussels-crats try to regulate the world according to their desires, in the end, some things cannot be regulated or controlled. And there is such a thing as the hard economic reality of the MARKET, like this:
. . . if no steps were taken to reform the sector, Europe could eventually end up importing more wine than it exported. Imports have grown by 10 percent a year the last ten years while exports are only slowly increasing, according to the commission. . . . European imports of wine from the "new world", such as Australia, Chile, South Africa and the US, have increased 19-fold in some cases, while the newcomers have been snapping up a growing share of the world market. |
Yes, you knew it was going to happen. While Europe, the cradle of winemaking, became more confined by regulations, the rest of the world's young, upstart, hotshot wine producers were busy making . . . better wine! Or at least, more competitive wines. I'm always delighted to report that American vintages are world-class, and I hear consistently that Australian and South African vintages are also very very good (if under-rated).