Wine given heritage status in France

A bill put forward to the French senate to give the country’s wines and vineyards national heritage status has been accepted.

Image from In WIneTruth

According to La Depeche du Midi, the bill was accepted over the weekend and recognises that: “wine and winemaking areas form a part of the cultural and gastronomic landscape of France.

Roland Courteau the senator for the Aude department was the one who brought the bill to the senate and “rejoiced” that wine had been protected by its acceptance.

“It will no longer be presented as a banal alcoholic product,” he said, referring to what some in France see as a mounting attack on wine by the government and health services.

Courteau told the paper: “Henceforth, wine is sheltered from attack and cannot be devalued anymore for future generations.

“Wine is an expression of a living heritage, it is a part of our cultural and literary heritage but also, equally, that of our gastronomic, architectural, economic and social landscape, and it also provides jobs for hundreds of thousands of people.”