A very French solution, yes?
In France, youth binge drinking (15 – 25 year olds) is experiencing a major rise. A proposed solution? Give university students wine tastings in lunch cafeterias to teach them how to respect and enjoy wine. “Why is there sexual education and not viticultural education? You can learn wine too.” This is being supported by a well-known gastronome and a former director of the Sorbonne.
Actually, that’s a very very French solution, yes?
Subscribe by email
March 5th, 2010 at 01h32
I have a friend whom I met when he was a grad student doing an internship while we were both at Rockwell. Most of our group was having lunch in the cafeteria and the subject turned to wine. Turning to a specific bottling, Cyril, my friend, asked “It wouldn’t be a problem if I brought a bottle of wine for us to try at lunch, would it?” At least it occurred to him to ask. It was an offense to even bring the wine onto the campus. He was very surprised.
This is the same friend with whom I was driving one day, and mentioned that prices for homes in the unincorporated land where the Science Center was situated was at a premium partially due to its being “zoned for horses”. He asked what that meant, and I said that in the incorporated areas, one couldn’t own a horse. He was appalled: “In the rest of the city,” he asked, “you can’t have a horse but you can have a gun?!”
This was nine years ago, which seems a very long time to me just now Jenn and I had him over for a great (IMHO) dinner, and he asked what the cheapest price one could pay for drinkable table wine in this country was. I told him “about $8 per bottle.” He was amused. He said, if I remember correctly, that the answer was $2 in France. This was before “Two Buck Chuck”.
I delight in profound culture clashes.
At that same dinner, he refused to believe that the Stilton I was serving was an English cheese until I produced the wrapper.