France to loosen up wine ads

Measure targets decline in sales

January 21, 2005|Associated Press

PARIS -- Wine ads in France, once restricted to little more than a photo of the bottle, could boast about smell, taste, and color under a compromise approved unanimously by parliament's upper house. The amendment aims to settle a battle between struggling vintners and anti-alcoholism campaigners over a 1991 law limiting ads to dry information on name, manufacturer, alcohol content, and origin.

Both supporters, keen to shore up sagging wine sales, and groups seeking to reduce the 45,000 annual alcohol-related deaths in France, accepted the measure.

The changes were proposed by Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, who had to walk a fine line between efforts to combat drunken driving and the influential wine industry, which employs 500,000.

The measure next goes to a commission on Feb. 3 before final approval from both houses of parliament, said Senator Gerard Cesar, who will chair the commission. "It will be adopted. There's not much suspense," he said.

"Our producers should be able to make their products known in their own country," said Aymeri de Montesquiou, a senator who backed the change. "A genuine education in taste will help our fellow citizens consume better, not more."

But French doctors, who warn that encouraging wine sales will lead to more deaths, appealed to President Jacques Chirac to stop the changes.

The average Frenchman now drinks half as much wine as in 1961, or 13 gallons a year. Even so, France still ranks number one in per capita wine consumption.