FoodWorks-International® 

France, which was once the world's leading wine-producing nation, lost its claim to that title when Italy increased its annual production to over 2 billion gallons some years ago.

Do not think of France as being the oldest wine-producing nation, for wine was being created  around the eastern Mediterranean basin millennia before Caesar divided Gaul into three parts.

Indeed, the French can't even claim to have undisputed bragging rights as being the producers of the world's best wines. Vinous competitors around the world, from Italy to California to Australia, would have much to say about that.

None of which will take away from this comment: "Without the contributions France has made, wine as we know it today, wine wouldn't be wine".

Back in the 12th Century, when the English held Bordeaux, they learned to love the local wine, a beverage they called "claret."

Ever since that time, throughout the civilized world, the standard for fine wine - the dry, acidic type that marries well with food - has been based on the French model, of technique and respect.

France, which still is the second-largest wine producer in the world, produces extremely small quantities of some of the finest and most expensive wines. It also produces huge quantities of

vin ordinaire (day to day drinking wine) that's rarely exported.

In the middle there's a good selection of decent, fairly priced table wine that gives a good idea of  the debt wine lovers owe to France.

If you've ever had the experience and pleasure to order a pitcher of red wine in a Parisian bistro, then more than likely you will have tasted a Cotes-du-Rhone. It has an intensely fruity, very sharp acidic taste, a  red wine that works very well with red meat, but do not think of it as a mellow sipping wine.

If the taste runs to something sweeter, then a White Zinfandel will come to mind, This wine could take a little getting used to, but it's a great example of the kind of sound, interesting table wines that come from France. From Alsace to the Loire, from Provence to Languedoc, and of course in the fabled wine regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy, There will be thousands more to find and enjoy.