Willi's Wine Bar (Paris, France): Monument to a party animal

So you are over at the Louvre and you are done for the day. You have had your fill of watching Monica Lewinsky -- or whatever her name is -- and being battered about by camera-toting terrorists. You want to get off your feet. You want to sit back with a nice bottle of wine, have some great reprise conversation in a nice, funky atmosphere. Maybe if the place is nice enough, and the food looks good, you may even order some. And you shouldn't have to go too far to access this retreat. Boy have I got the place for you.

Yes. Willi's Wine Bar. Located at 15 rue des Petits-Champs in Paris' First Arrondissement.  But hey. I am getting ahead of myself. Lets rewind.

During the course of our time in Burgundy (Yeah I know. I haven't gotten to that as yet), Raj had set up lunch for the six of us at Willi's Wine Bar for 1:00 pm on Saturday. This meant that we had to roll out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to get to Paris from Beaune. Raj said he would swing by our hotel at 8:00 am so that we could caravan in but he is no Swiss timepiece so we bailed at 8:30.

I had gotten us to our hotels and returned the car by noon and, after a short coffee in the hotel lobby, we got into a taxi and headed for Willi's. The taxi driver wended his way south along George V and then turned east along the bank of the Seine, north into Place du Carrousel through the heart of the Louvre (my only brush with culture on this trip), and then continued northward until he hit rue des Petits-Champs where he made a left turn. He said we had arrived. I looked around and got out. Not an especially crowded area. Large wooden doors across the street (found out later that this was the doorway of the Cour Tue-Boeuf of the Bibliotheque National) and a blue-colored storefront with oval arches marking our destination.

We stepped through the Willi's entrance and ran up hard against a bar which took up most of the left side of the two halves of the establishment (From our viewpoint, the right side seemed to provide the bulk of the establishment's seating capacity.). At the furthest end of the bar from where we entered, a waitress-cum-bartender was wrapping silverware into napkins while looking at us with an expectant smile. After seeing that we intended to stay, she came over, introduced herself, and took our orders. Arabella (that is her name) is a cheeky, half-French/half-English lass who, during and after taking care of our order, gave us some of the backstory of the bar. The bar was opened in 1980 and is still going strong. It was named after a dog, a dog who is no longer with us. And a dog, so said Mark later on, who had been a "party animal" (I had not asked for further clarification of that characterization.).

We spent some time at the bar chatting with Arabella and sipping on Chablis and went to our table when Ron and Bev showed up. We were all on a high because this had been a massive trip. For Ron, especially so, because DRC courses through his veins. And he had swung the DRC visit.

A short while after we sat, a lanky Englishman came over and introduced himself. He was Mark Williamson, the owner of the establishment. He asked after Raj with a smile on his face so we told him about the caravan idea. He laughed and said that Raj would show up as soon as he began to open a bottle of wine. He was not too far off.

While waiting for Arabella bring over the bottle, we asked him about the bar and how long he had been in the business. He had apparently been in Paris for a while so I asked if he had been here during the Steven Spurrier days. Yes. He had worked with Steven for three years at the Caves de Madeleine. As a matter of fact he had just recently had dinner with Steven back in the UK. Prior to coming to France, he had worked in the kitchen at the Connaught in London (not too shabby a place to have on your resume)

By this time the wine had arrived and Mark proceeded to open it. And in walks Raj. They welcomed each other warmly and that is when I discovered that they are both partners in Evening Land Enterprises. According to Mark, he was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean and, after a long day of drinking, someone had convinced him that he had to become a partner in the venture. 

The Chablis we had was not as finely honed as I like them but provided classic notes of lime, mineral, stone and chalk; albeit on a wider base. Lengthy finish.

Raj and Mark Williamson

Based on his experience with the menu, we had Raj do the ordering which comprised, for the most part, of a first course of salads and a main course of chicken. Raj also ordered a 2000 Cornas and a 1999 Côte Rotie to accompany the main course and mentioned that the bar has a phenomenal aged-Rhone list.

This was a lovely afternoon filled with great food and great conversation about the experiences and initiatives of both Raj and Mark. During the time we were there, the patronage had filled out nicely and included a number of families. The venue was perfect for a Saturday afternoon brunch but I will visit it the next time I am in Paris to see what the evening vibe is like.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

La Fontaine de Mars (Paris, France): "So nice we did it twice"

For dinner on the first of the two nights we would be spending in Paris, prior to our Burgundy jaunt, we acted on the recommendation of the George V concierge and had dinner at La Fontaine de Mars. We were not disappointed. As a matter of fact, we were so pleased with the outcome that we arranged on the spot to revisit the locale on the following Saturday night on our scheduled return from Beaune.

Cassoulet from first visit to La Fontaine de Mars

View of the ET on the walk from La Fontaine
back to our hotels

La Fontaine de Mars is located in Paris's 7th Arrondissement at the intersections of rue St. Dominique and rue de L'exposition in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. On our first visit, we thought that the taxi driver had brought us to a small theater by mistake because there was a crowd standing around outside. We soon discovered that these were no art patrons; they were waiting around in the hope of getting a seat at the one of the small number of tables on offer.

The restaurant is small, with three Lilliputian seating areas on the ground floor and a cramped eating space on the level above. In addition, there is outside seating along the front and the side of the restaurant. There is a small kitchen at the back right of the restaurant and that is even more crowded than it is on the floor. Our preference is to sit on the ground floor adjacent to the kitchen so that we could feed off the energy inside the kitchen and out as the staff worked frenetically to deliver excellence in a submarine.

This is not a place that you go to for a nice, quiet, romantic dinner. The wait staff is engaging and engaged, flitting from kitchen to table and back, all the while keeping up lively banter with fellow waiters, patrons, and kitchen staff. This fun, happy mood is picked up and reflected by the customers.

The menu has  number of French standards that are complemented by a "specials" board that is brought to the table when you are ready to order. The wine list is establishment-appropriate with offerings from all of the major French wine regions. The clientele seems to be a mix of tourists (I was aghast on my first visit to see a group of US where the females were decked out in berets of different colors. Somewhat ancien caricature.) and locals.

On our first night at the restaurant, the food and wine clicked on all cylinders (except that the wives did not like our Gangloff blanc and ordered a Sancerre for themselves). On our second trip, most of the food was spectacular (except in the cases where Ron placed himself in the hands of the waiter and could not come to terms with the results).

We started off with a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé. Paul, our waiter, brought over some bread and thinly sliced sausage to accompany our ruminations on the wine list. The Billecart had a nice pale strawberry color and its freshness and bread notes were great stepping stones back into the ring after our extended lunch at Willie's Wine Bar.

I ordered the Bisque de Hommard as my starter while Ron "ended up" with a "leg of Salmon." The soup was presented at the right temperature and was accompanied by a garlic aioli and toast. It had a slight saltiness, was not too creamy, had great texture, and a rich, full flavor without being cloying. It went swimmingly with the Champagne. Of course Ron had soup envy and sent his hunk of Salmon back to be replaced with a soup.

For the main course I had a Black Pudding Sausage on a bed of cooked apples and my wife had the Duck Confit. The duck was truly amazing. It was the DOTN. Each of us sampled. Ron's sample was largest because he had mis-ordered again and so had to have a bigger piece to keep his spirits up. My dish was a contrast in flavors with the savoriness and coarse-grained character standing in stark contrast to the sweetness and fine-grained texture of the apple. The weight and size of the meal ensured that the plate would not be empty when I took my bib off.

We paired the main course with a 20101 Henri Boillot Pommard, a study in red berries, toast, and spice. One of the areas where La Fontaine de Mars definitely needs improvement is in the quality of glassware provided for customer use. We noted the thimbles they used on our first trip and got them to promise they would have better glasses for us when we came back. They did not deliver.

I closed out my dinner with a Creme Caramel while my wife had some kind of a space capsule. By this time Ron had settled on drinking only so I didn't have to try to capture his mishaps. The Gangloff Côte Rotie exhibited jammy fruit, spices, and black olives on the nose and was deep and rich on the palate.

Chef Pierre with my sposa

If you visit this restaurant, ask for Paul. He epitomizes the shift in Parisian waiters from the curmudgeonly garçons of the '80s and '90s to a smiling, personable, service-oriented waiter. Where have all the bad boys gone?


©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Dinner at Le Taillevent, a Paris icon

Our Burgundy jaunt with Raj Par was preceded by a two-day, two-night blitz of selected Parisian restaurants. One of the "blitzees" was Le Taillevent, an icon on the French dining scene, visited on the eve of our ride out to Beaune.

Located at 15 Rue Lammenais, but a stones throw away from Champs Elysees, Le Taillevent has been in continuous operation since its founding in Paris in 1946 by M. Andre Vrinat and was held in the namesake family until sold (along with other related holdings) to the Gardinier brothers in 2011. The restaurant's receipt of three Michelin stars over its history (1948, 1954, 1973) is a testament to the quality of its food and service. It reverted to two-star status in 2011.

We were welcomed by two hostesses, who smilingly checked our reservations and then ushered us to a smart-looking couch to await our dining companions. Once the Siegels arrived, one of the hostesses walked us back to our table. My first impression on entering the dining room was of patrons attending to the business of having a good time and staff attentively assisting them in that endeavor. Our seats were in a booth-like setting, with padded, fixed, bench-like seats against the wall, a table that almost ran the length of the bench, and two chairs on the outside of the arrangement. This was a cozy; until someone on the inside needed to get out.

Once we had taken our seats, we were presented with menus and a wine list. The wine list was formidable -- both inside and out. Ron went quickly to the Champagne section and ordered a Jack Selosse Rosé in order to buy us time to carefully peruse the massive tome. (The Sommelier who assisted us over the course of our vinous expedition was Elize and, in manner, look, and speech, she reminded us of Pascaline Lepeltier, the well-known -- and well-regarded -- Somm at NYCs Rouge Tomate.). The Selosse had a lovely salmon color in the glass and yielded dried rose petals, strawberries, yeast, and sourdough bread on the nose. Lean with bright acidity and a burnt orange taste. It was "paired" with the Amouse Bouche, a complex and delectable Crispy Langoustine in a Sweet and Sour Sauce.

The food menu had an a la carte offering and two tasting menus. After we were resuscitated by the paramedics, we opted for the more extensive of the two tasting menus because we felt that it had the best quality/pain ratio.

Our first course was a Crab with Radish which we paired with a 1990 Comte de Lafon Meursault de Perrieres. According to Elize, this was the last bottle of this wine in their cellar. The wine had a golden color with a slightly honeyed nose accompanying notes of pear, coconut oil, citrus, and a rich oiliness. Little oxidative character. Burnt orange and citrus on the palate. Ron's notes mentioned honey, pear, and lanolin.

The second course was a Lobster Sausage with Fennel Foam. The bulbous appearance of the sausage, its lack of defined color, and its giving response to even the slightest application of force, made us initially doubt our choice. But in the mouth this dish was heavenly and was enriched by the very light sauce which accompanied it. This dish was paired with the 2000 Raveneau Les Clos. Ron thought that this wine exhibited notes of seashell, chalk, and flint. Fresh, with amazing minerality.

Next up was a Red Snapper with Zucchini Flowers. This was a clean presentation backed up by fulsome flavors. It was paired with a 2003 Armand Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze. On the nose the wine presented smoked oak, vanillin, and strawberry. On the palate a spiciness, copious amounts of red berries, road tar, cigar box, and savoriness. Lengthy finish.

The next two courses were paired with a 2003 Chateau Rayas. The first of the two courses was a White Wheat Risotto and Morel Mushrooms topped with morel mushroom foam and all sitting in a light brown sauce. This was followed in short order by a Foie Gras accompanied by foam-topped carrots. The Foie Gras had a mouthfeel and texture that belied its color and the distinctive salty tang was perfectly balanced by the relative blandness of the carrots. The Rayas was characterized (Ron) by cherries, kirsch liqueur, garrigue, lavender, and earth.

After a cheese course, we were treated to a carmel and chocolate dessert and petit fours. We closed out with a Taillevent-branded Armagnac which was excellent.

This was an excellent dining experience in a food and wine temple that cares and is not unwilling to demonstrate that in every way. The quality of the food and the service excellence puts this establishment in a very special place. We have a penchant for being the last people to leave an establishment but our servers hung in with us; smilingly. In their words, "we close when you leave."  Could have been famous last words but ...

The tasting menu is the way to go here. It is high quality, varied, and gives you a chance to pair a wide range of offerings with the establishment's wines (We were so focused on the food and wine upstairs that we forgot to go take a peek at their fabled wine cellar.). It also works out to be more economical than trying to put a like meal together from the a la carte menu.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Harvesting: The most important decision for the winemaker

On of the most important decisions facing the viticulturist/winemaker is the timing of the grape harvest -- the so-called point of "optimal ripeness." As the starting point for the production of a quality wine, it is imperative that high-quality grapes be delivered to the cellar door. As noted by Wynboer, overripe as well as green grapes have a detrimental influence on the wine." As important as optimal ripeness is to the wine maker, there is no specific definition for the condition nor are there formalized mechanisms or technologies for determining its attainment. To further complicate matters, optimal ripeness will vary from winemaker to winemaker depending on (Bisson):

• the style of wine being pursued
• the working definition of quality
• variety
• rootstock
• site
• the interaction of variety, rootstock, and site
• season-specific factors
• viticultural practices
• downstream processing events and goals.

With a "definition" of optimal ripeness in place, we can then turn to the identification of the relevant parameters. Dami has divided the criteria into two broad classes: objective and subjective. The objective criteria revolve around the components of grape juice at maturity, with sugar, acid, and pH being the primary indicators based on (i) abundance and (ii) ease of measurement.

• Sugar concentration -- use of sugar concentration as the only measure of grape maturity ignores the contribution of a number of other elements to the perception of a quality wine. Also, there is not a one-to-one relationship between sugar and quality. According to Wynboer, Duplessis obtained quality differentials of between 8% and 27% with 4 years of Pinotage pressed at 22 °Brix.
• Titratable acidity – actual amount of acid in the wine. According to Dami should fall between 0.6 and 0.8 gm/100ml
• pH – measure of active acidity. Increases with increases in sugar concentration. According to Wynboer, not a reliable measure on its own. Should be between 3.1 and 3.3 for white grapes and 3.3 - 3.5 for red grapes
• Ratio between sugar and acid – Wynboer sees this as more significant than any of the preceding alone. Jackson sees this as a requirement for a commercial-grade operation in a temperate climate. Bisson points out its variability across cultivars and a lack of clarity as to whether optimal acid:sugar ratios coincide with optimal flavorant maturity.

 The subjective criteria identified by Dami are as follows: color; ease of removal of berries from pedicel; texture; aroma; and flavor. These tests should be conducted by the winemaker during vineyard walk-through. Of the objectives tests mentioned, the test for flavor is the most important. Bisson sees optimal maturity as assessable only by monitoring flavorants themselves but such a task is laborious and expensive (Dami, Jackson) and has to be approximated through tasting (Wynboer, Dami).
 
Given that picking at optimal ripeness is critically important to the production of a quality wine, and that there are no mechanical/technological aids available to assist in accomplishing that goal, winemakers have generally turned to vineyard sampling as a means of: (i) testing the progress of the various berry components; (ii) predicting the optimal pick time; and (iii) to get a sense of the must after harvest. Under ideal conditions, the winemaker would test the fruit and, when the optimal ripeness is determined to have been achieved, harvest the fruit of the entire vineyard. But things are not so simple. Grapes in a vineyard do not ripen evenly – asynchronous ripening – signaling different development paths. This is a problem for the winemaker as both underripe and overripe fruit provide the opportunity for production of a lower quality wine.  At the vineyard level, ripening differences could be due to (Jackson): differences in vineyard age and health; inter- /intra-block differences in soil structure, texture, nutrition, and moisture content; and, the length of the flowering period. Variation between berries can be a function of (Zoecklein); berry size; berry composition; number of seeds; seed size; and berry position.
 
The goal of the vineyard sampling activity is to collect a sample that, when processed, will be reflective of the must composition. In order to accomplish this goal, the sample has to be large, representative, and positionally aware such that previously described berry and vineyard variabilities are accounted for therein. The consensus approach (Dami, Heller, Zoecklein, Wann, Watson) to sampling design and execution is as follows:

• Devise the sampling scheme prior to entering the vineyard and, once there, stick with it
• Sampling can be either berry-specific or whole cluster. If berry, collect at least 200/block. If cluster, collect 10 – 20 clusters.
• Begin sampling about three weeks prior to the estimated pick date. Sample weekly, increasing frequency as you get closer in
• Avoid sampling from end rows and odd-looking vines
• Fruit should be selected from exposed as well as shaded locations at different heights and at opposite sides of the rows
• Sample in the morning rather than in the afternoon. Dami sees a 1 °Brix difference.

Avoid the sampling flaws identified by Watson:

• Collecting too few berries. According to Dami, two samples of 100 berries each are required to be within 1 °Brix of sugar at harvest
• Collecting riper, mature berries. Again, will not provide a true picture of the post-harvest must
• Sampling higher percentage of exposed berries. Neil points out that sun exposure of a berry, or the position of the cluster on the shoot, can influence maturity.

 

 References
 Bisson, Linda, “In Search of Optimal Grape Maturity,” Practical Winery and Vineyard Journal, July/Aug01.
Dami, Imed, “Determining Grape Maturity and Fruit Sampling,” Ohio State OAROC Extension.
Hellman, Edward, “How to Judge Grape Ripeness Before Harvest,” winegrapes.tamu.edu/grow/ripening.pdf
Jackson, Ronald S., Wine Science: Principles and Applications, 3^rd ed., Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008
Nail, William, Collecting Berry Samples to Assess Grape Maturity
Roller, Ben, “Pre-fermentation cold maceration,” brsquared.org/wine/Articles/coldsoak.htm
Wann, Grady, Live presentation on optimal ripeness
Watson, Evaluation of Wine Grape Maturity
Wynboer, “Optimum Ripeness in Wine Grapes,” May 2000, wineland.co.za.
Zoecklein, Bruce, Enology Notes #143, apps.fst.vt.edu/extension/enology/EN/143.html

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Decline and fall of the Algerian wine industry: Filling in the study gaps

The French vineyards had been decimated by the Phylloxera infestation of the 1860s and Algeria had ridden the "magic carpet" of unfulfilled French consumer demand to the point where, in 1905, it was exporting 5 million hl of wine to France (50% of its total exports), fully 1/3 of its GDP.  A new Journal of Wine Economics paper (The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter -- And its Institutional Legacy, Vol 9 (1), 2014), written by economists Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen of the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance (Leuvin, Belgium), detailed the upward trajectory of the industry as well as its subsequent fall but, I contend, does not paint a complete picture in the rationale provided for the decline.  I reviewed their findings on the rise of the industry in an earlier post; in this post I cover their findings on the fall and flesh out the rationale palette.

After French producers had dug up their infected vines and replaced them with vines grafted onto American rootstocks, the Phylloxera threat abated. As production increased, wine prices declined significantly, falling 65% in the 25 years following 1880. French producers sought government relief and this came in the form of tariffs on Italian and Spanish wines imported into the country. Italian and Spanish wine imports declined as a result of the tariff-driven price increase and this led to further increases in the volume of Algerian exports as French consumers substituted Algerian wine for its more expensive competition.

World War I and the spread of Phylloxera to its vineyards took Algerian wine off the table as an issue for French producers; Algerian production fell from 10 million hl pre-war to 5 million hl in 1922. But this was a temporary state of affairs as rapid adoption of the American-rootstock technique, significant expansion in vineyard area (175,00 ha to 400,000 ha from 1925 - 1935), and high wine prices in France (23 francs/hl in 1921 - 1925; 32 francs/hl, 1926 - 1930) saw production grow to 20 million ha in 1935. Production declined to 1922 levels in the middle of WWII but was back up to 18 million hl by 1953.

On Algeria's independence in 1962 it had 360,000 ha under vine; by 2005 that number had declined to 25,000ha. Production was 15 million hl at independence and 600,000 hl in 2009. Exports were 14.8 million hl at independence and 17,000 hl in 2008. To what forces were these precipitous declines attributable?

Production (blue) and export (rust) data for the Algerain wine

industry. Smoothing obscures inter-point volatility.

Selected data points from Meloni and Swinnen time series

Selected data points from Meloni and Swinnen time series.
Smoothing obscures inter-point volatility.

According to Meloni and Swinnen:

• Export constraints after independence. France had agreed to purchase 39 million hl over 5 years but, encouraged by domestic producers, failed to meet its obligations under the treaty.
• Poor management after the wine industry was nationalized
• The inability to find substitute markets. A deal in 1969 to supply the Soviet market was abandoned due to profit pressures.

While the authors mentioned poor management as one of the main reasons for the failure of the industry, they do not provide any quantitative or qualitative data to back up that assertion. Further, they failed to mention a number of potentially critical elements of the decline.

First, these selfsame authors had attributed the rapid growth of the Algerian wine industry to the 50,000 families entering the country after the Phylloxera infestation in France, bringing critical winemaking and management skills to the country. Is it not likely then that the 900,000 European Algerians who left the country after independence might have taken some of those skills (remember 97% of the vineyards were owned by French settlers) with resultant short- and long-term negative implications for the industry? Mongabay.com asserts that the Algerian wine industry was "severely handicapped by the sudden loss of foreign managers and skilled labor." In addition, many of the Algerians who had worked closely with the French pre-independence either fled the country or were killed shortly after independence. Could some winemaking and managerial skills also have been lost in this manner?

Second, the authors stress the loss of the export market but Algeria lost its domestic market also when the 900,000 Algerian-Europeans went home. And that market would never be coming back.

So these guys were screwed: they had lost their only export market; they had lost their domestic market; and they had lost the critical winemaking and management skills of the foreigners and locals who had "fled" the country. Add to this the "government view that dependence on wine was probably inappropriate for a muslim state" (Mongabay.com) -- another rationale that the authors failed to mention -- and you end up where Algeria is today. According to the authors, "From a global perspective, the Algerian wine industry has 'effectively disappeared.'"

This study was, overall, very digestible. It was an "old school" study which eschewed econometrics and mathematical economics in favor of time series data and associated analysis. I had some issues with the paper though. First, it seemed as though the authors tried to cram three separate studies into one: (i) The rise and fall of the Algerian wine industry; (ii) the bi-directional flow of wine-related legislation as it relates to France and Algeria; and (iii) the role of French wine regulation in shaping the direction of European -- nay worldwide -- wine regulation. Second, the authors failed to at least advance some of the decline-and-fall narrative that I have provided; and (iii) a little bit of modeling (using regression analysis and dummy variables) would have helped us to understand the relative importance of the provided reasons for the decline and whether other heretofore unidentified factors also contributed.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The rise of the Algerian Wine Industry

In his otherwise excellent history of wine (Reinventing Wine), Paul Lukacs failed to mention that 1960s Algeria was the world's largest wine exporter and its fourth largest producer. Further, while he described his version of the formulation of the French appellation system at great length, he did not mention the catalytic role of the Algerian wine industry in its development. These two points, along with many others, are detailed in a new Journal of Wine Economics paper (The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter -- And its Institutional Legacy, Vol 9 (1), 2014) written by economists Giulia Meloni and Johan Swinnen of the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance located in Leuvin, Belgium.

The French conquered Algeria in 1830 and managed it as a colony until granting it independence in 1962.

Source: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/algeria.html

With French colonization, Algerian viticulture began to grow, with settler and colonists alike drinking the beverage because of its perceived safety and medicinal benefits. The country's warm temperature retarded development, however, and it was not until the introduction of the "cold fermentation" technique (allowing complete fermentation of the harvested grape) that serious commercial viticulture could be undertaken.

The introduction of cold fermentation, coupled with the devastation of French vineyards by the Phylloxera louse, lit a fuse under the nascent Algerian wine industry. Phylloxera caused a 70% decline in French wine production but this loss of capacity did not result in a diminishing of the French consumer's demand for wine. The combination of lost capacity and continued high product demand resulted in the following state of affairs:

• Increased demand for Algerian wine as France filled its 15 million hl demand shortfall with imports and adulteration. Imports increased from 1.2 million hl in the 1865-1869 period to 10.6 million hl in the 1875-1879 period.
• 50,000 French families emigrated to Algeria and took control of 700,000 ha, much of it destined to become vineyards
• An exponential increase in the level and amount of winemaking skills now resident in Algeria.

The Bank of Algeria was also a key enabler in the expansion of Algerian wine production as, in this timeframe, it overcame its previous reluctance to provide capital to the industry.

Initially, France's European neighbors also benefitted from its demand gap but as Algerian production ramped up, their fortunes fell off. While Algerian exports to France rose to 5 million hl in 1905, it was almost zero from Italy (down from 1.5 million hl in the late 1880s) and 2 million hl from Spain (down from 7 million hl in the same timeframe). For Algeria, by the turn of the century, 1/3 of its GDP, and 50% of its exports, revolved around wine production. By 1933, that export percentage had risen to 63%.

The charts below show production and export of Algerian wine and the area under vine. The details behind the charts will be discussed in a later post but the take-away here is the massive increase in all three measures from the starting point in the late 1800s.

Production (blue) and export (rust) data for the Algerain wine

industry. 

Selected data points from Meloni and Swinnen time series

Selected data points from Meloni and Swinnen time series

I will cover the issues surrounding the fall of the Algerian wine industry in a subsequent post.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

French wine quality: From thin air to a weapon of war

In a recent post I touched briefly on how the French appellation system had evolved into a standard of quality. Recent research has pointed out that this was not a benign evolution. Rather, quality was used as a hammer to dispose of the ongoing threat posed to the well-being of the French producers by the Algerian wine industry. And succeed it did. But that success is the story of another post. In this post I provide further detail on the origins of the appellation system, drawing heavily on the work of Guilia Meloni and Johan Swinnen (The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Wine Exporter ..., Journal of Wine Economics, Vol 9 (1), 2014), both economists at the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance in Leuvin, Belgium.

At the turn of the 20th century, the French wine industry appeared to align along three poles: the establishment (Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne producers); the French south; and Algerian producers. And these groups had all "lawyered up" for the battle-royal in which they were engaged.

Selected Turn-of-the-Century French Wine-Producer Organizations

Region	Organizations
Champagne	Fédération des Syndicats de la Champagne
	Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne
	Association Viticole Champenoise
Southern France	Syndicat des Viticulteurs (1887)
	Confédération Génerale des Vigneros du Midi (1907)
Algeria	Confederation des Vignerons des Trois Départments Algériens

Source: Meloni and Swinnen

According to Meloni and Swinnen, the continental French producers wanted to reduce/eliminate imports from Algeria because of its pricing effect (Bordeaux and Burgundy producers) and similarity of offering (Southern France producers) and pushed the French government, over a number of years, to enact legislation which resulted in the attainment of their goals.

The first of what Meloni and Swinnen call "Quality Regulations" arose out of the so-called "Leakey Affair" wherein Algerian producers had contracted with a British merchant to sell their wines in England. With Algeria being a French Colony, Mr. Leakey took the liberty of advertising the Algerian wine as French and this angered continental French producers when it came to their attention. They accused the Algerian producers of being in cahoots with Mr. Leakey in this "false advertising" campaign and, further, accused them of producing "non-natural, artificial" wine. One month after the Leakey contract went into effect, the French government passed the Frauds and Falsification Law of August 1905 which stipulated that French wines sold commercially had to indicate its origin on the label.

Once this law was in effect, the producers hastily pursued the advancement of their interests by championing laws which tied the quality of a wine to (i) its place of production and (ii) the traditional wine producing methods of that (those) place(s). To take full advantage of the new reality that had been created on the ground, Bordeaux, Cognac, Armagnac, and Champagne were demarcated between 1906 and 1912 and began to be referred to as appellations (The Champagne boundaries were not finalized until 1927 when Aube kicked the doors in. The Champagne case was a little different than the case of the still-wine producers but the motivations were similar. The Champagne Growers felt that the Champagne Houses were bringing in "foreign wines" and calling it Champagne so these quality initiatives advanced their cause also.).

Once the foundation had been laid, the legal terroir was extended and solidified by a series of additional "quality laws":

• A 1919 law made it illegal for an unauthorized producer to use an appellation name
• A 1927 law restricted the varieties and viticultural practices that could be used for appellation wine
• A 1935 law created the AOC system which:
• combined earlier legislation
• stipulated regions, variety, minimum alcohol content, and maximum vineyard yield.

With the passage of the 1935 law, the French producers had completed the journey from selling whatever they could get their hands on to developing a framework which, on the surface, seemed altruistic and consumer-friendly, but, in reality, was a tremendous barrier to entry. Quality is a high-value, desirable word and who would fault the producer for pursuing quality? Only the ones who are frozen out by the "quality" initiatives. But who is listening.

Today we think of the French AOC system as being definitive of the taste of a region and, to some extent, a designator of quality wines. But that is only the part of the iceberg that is visible above the surface. Beneath the waves this is a significant barrier to entry which, in addition to saying who is in, serves to effectively keep the "other" out. This system was formulated initially by the French wine-producing establishment as a series of geographic exclusionary zones which were then legally reinforced with "quality" characteristics, made unique with variety and viticultural restrictions and, finally, with the AOC laws of 1935, codified for the state and, eventually, the rest of Europe.

Telecommunications providers have this old adage around bandwidth -- Build it and they will come. The French producers built this. And we all came.

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