Why the French are drinking less wine

Perhaps they are realising the health risks?

I can't understand why the article refers to wine as an anti-depressant. Isn't alcohol supposed to be a depressant. Or, it just makes you feel more of whatever you are feeling when you drink it. ie more depressed, if you are that already.

Alcohol is a depressant, right enough, but the first thing it suppresses is one's inhibitions,so you get a wey-hey - what the hell period. Only later does it bring you down, often causing people to become maudlin.

French people that I have known were often stingy with the bottle, one little glass with dinner and then put the bottle away for tomorrow - just when I fancied another!

I thought it was because I had drunk it all

More precisely, it is a central nervous system depressant (like many painkillers). That's not the same thing as something that makes you depressed.

And that's why you shouldn't drink and drive. Alcohol 'slows down' or suppresses the nervous system so your reactions aren't as fast.

My friends in France have always had a small glass of red wine about an hour before going to bed.
I have not seen them for over 2 years but I will be visiting them soon and they have told me over the phone they are still in with the wine tradition.
They don't smoke and don't drink in the day because of drink drive regulations.

Frank

my late father went over there for the D-Day celebration having been their during the war and came back with a love for Calvados.

It's a depressant, but in my case, the disinhibiting effect always used to take precedence. I say 'used to' because if I'm out, I'm usually driving and I rarely, if ever, drink on my own.

The French have been drinking less wine for years now.
They know, or have known for a while that French wine is either undrinkable or unaffordable.

I forgot.

A lot of the wine my friends in France drink is not French.

Frank

Maybe they've discovered Gin!

iJohanna
Heresy!

Your late father was a man of discernment, enviousamerican. I was introduced to Calvados in Normandy in 1962, and have never looked back! I am lifting a glass to his memory as I type.

thank you grumppa,thats very kind.

Nice one, grumppa. I'll raise a glass of good old Aldi's merlot. £2.99 a bottle

I am afraid I am not much help to the French wine trade, as I have two thirds of a glass, and top it up with water, with my evening meal. I have had periods of my life when I was not as happy as I am now, and I drank for oblivion - it didn't help, of course. I never want to lose another day of my life because I have such a bad hangover (alcoholic poisoning) that I cannot move.
I did share a glass or two with my family in New Zealand but they are not big drinkers either. New Zealand wine is excellent, but expensive if exported.
I have noticed when lunching in a restaurant here that many people leave wine in the bottle when they leave - I wonder what happens to it!

I tend to restrict myself to just 1 glass of wine when I am not expecting to drive.
Even if a sudden reason comes up to drive I wont be over the limit.

Frank

We used to have friends in Normandy, alas deceased, but well pickled first I suspect - who made their own cider, distilled their own Calvados and also served the two mixed as a Pommeau - lethal!!

Well, I have just helped my DD and SIL dispose of a couple of bottles of a very good sem/ chard, (although I do prefer to drink a French wine) well deserved after a day of screaming gc's and temperature in the 30's. I never drink if I am the the driver but, like tonight, I do enjoy, a few relaxing glasses. Hic Good Night

My DH loves Calvados, I am giving him a bottle instead of chocolate for Easter. Much more expensive than an egg, but I know he loves it .

Yes lots of cider, pommeau and calva made in our village. One of my friends in the village gave me a litre of her father's 1949 vintage to celebrate our (hers and mine) sixtieth birthdays. It is very strong.....
It is really interesting to hear about how it was used in the past - as a poultice, as an antiseptic, to make babies sleep (!) etc. Lots of the neighbours say that their parents drank cider at every meal including breakfast. Another thing people do is put a sugar lump in to calva and eat that. Still an absolutely integral part of village celebrations and if we go as a group to a restaurant they often take the calva with them.

The calvados made by our late neighbour was undrinkable, but it was OK when used in cooking or stripping paintwork. One of DS's then university friends could and did down the stuff to the immense admiration of his friends. Our neighbour had a daughter much the same age and as DS and friend spoke reasonable French they used to go off with her and she shared all the secrets of country adolescence including 'liberating' bottles of calvados and cider from their parents and collecting in reasonably remote barns and doing what all teenagers do, drink, smoke and complain about school. They were also told how to get a spliff by visiting a certain café in a local town and knocking on the back door.

This of course was some 20 years ago. All our now respectable members of the community; married with children, mortgages and responsible jobs.

However dreadful his calvados, our neighbours pommeau was the best I have ever drunk.

So the French are drinking less wine. Not a problem – I'll make up for it.