BBC News explains why the French drink less wine
The BBC comments the decrease in wine consumption in France and proposes wine a san instrument for the ”art de vivre” but also as an antidepressant
Wine in France
On march 26th Hugh Schofield, BBC correspondent from France, has published an article titled << Why are the French drinking less wine?>> where he explains that in the nation where wine is a sort of National emblem the habitual consumers have decreased from 50% to 17% of the population in just over thirty years while the consumption per person has decreased from 160 litres in 1965 to the present day 30. It’s not as though in Italy things are going better, in fact here and in Spain, during the last twenty years the rapid decrease has touched minus 34%.
What is interesting is the study regarding the motive of such a rapid change in lifestyle and consumption which we could summarise in a lapidary phrase by Denis Saverot editor of the “La Revue du Vin de France “ << The village bar is gone, replaced by a pharmacy>>.
According to a sociological analysis the health and moral instances which
Oysters and Champagne
particularly influence young people have made a growing amount of people move away from daily wine consumption with the result being that the wine glasses are more and more empty while the sales of antidepressants rises to 80 million packets.
Maybe this is a more ironic than scientific explanation but one thing is sure: wine is the lightest, noblest and civil tonic for the nerves; it is through wine that lifestyle becomes “art de vivre”.
Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini