Hocker Grove
French One & Two
Wine
No other country in the world produces a larger volume of quality wine than France, and no other country produces it in such diversity. France produces 7 to 8 billion bottles of wine per year. That's the equivalent of 20% of the world’s production of wine. Many wine grape varieties now planted throughout the world (Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir) originally came from France. No other wine producing nation has such a long history of quality wine production.
French wine is so well respected that many of their wines helped define what various styles of wine should be like, such as Champagne, Bordeaux, and more. There isn’t an area in France that isn’t noted for some form of wine. France has a certification called the AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) that curiously guarantees not a wine’s quality, but its origin. There are no less than 293 of these original appellations in France.
What you won’t find, though, are a bunch of drunks. The French don’t really go for hard liquor or the cocktails that are popular in the United States. The most they’ll do is a kir, which is Crème de Cassis (blackberry flavored syrup) and white wine, or a demi-pêche, which is a half-pint of beer flavored with peach syrup. There are some special drinks for specific seasons – hard apple cider in Brittany and Normandy is a classic early fall choice – but the one constant is some kind of wine. They also drink slowly compared to many Americans, which makes sense when you realize their drinks are a kind of “table rent” that allows them to use the café space. Once they’re done, they have to leave! So sipping slowly and enjoying long conversations is the best way to get the most for their money.
Wines are commonly served with dinner together with water or fruit juice. In many areas of France, the local wine can be ridiculously cheap – as low as $2 a bottle! There are even special wines for each course of a dinner, such as an “apéritif" and “digestif”, special wines which go along with the appetizer and dessert/after-dinner courses respectively. Part of this is due to the cafe culture in France. For the price of a drink – alcoholic or not – you can rent a table at an outdoor cafe in any town in France and watch the world go by for as long as you’d like. Even the local bakery puts out a card table and a couple chairs they scrounged from the back room. Waiters think nothing of customers who order another entire bottle of wine after a full meal has been served, and wait patiently (yes, they do, no matter what you’ve heard) while those customers sip its contents and discuss everything under the sun. This is a common way to socialize with family, friends, and co-workers. It is the main meeting point outside of the home.
