Texas saves French wine

It would be particularly ugly if French wine makers showed ingratitude toward the U.S. after a Texan saved the European wine industry.

That’s not hyperbole, it really happened. The hyperbole about French-American viticulture relations came this week via a tweet from President Donald Trump:

“On Trade, France makes excellent wine, but so does the U.S. The problem is that France makes it very hard for the U.S. to sell its wines into France, and charges big Tariffs, whereas the U.S. makes it easy for French wines, and charges very small Tariffs. Not fair, must change!”

That sounds just terrible, except, according to California wine trade group the Wine Institute, the actual tariff situation is not nearly so dramatic. The European Union import tariff per bottle ranges from 11 cents to 29 cents, depending on the alcoholic content of the wine. And the U.S. import tariff (yes, the U.S. imposes a tariff, the Wine Institute says) on a 750 ml bottle is 5 cents for still wine and 14 cents for sparkling wine.

Whether you buy your wine from the bottom shelf at Kroger’s or off the menu at Al Biernet’s, those tariffs aren’t going to break you.

And even if you select French wine, you might be drinking from grape vines that originated in Texas. When French vineyards in 1880 faced destruction by the phylloxera root louse, a Texas horticulturist named T.V. Munson found a solution. According to a post on the Texas A&M Aggie Horticulture website, Munson knew that Texas rootstocks were resistant to phylloxera, and he suggested grafting the Texas root stocks with French vines. Voila! French vines adopted Texas resistance to the insect.

So next time you decide to shell out a few extra nickels for a French wine, raise a glass to those tough Texas grapevines.

And the next time you find yourself in the Provence, unable to find a Texas wine on the menu, understand that this is probably not a tariff problem. Those Aggie horticulturists have been toiling for more than a century to develop fine wine, facing disease, root rot, bad weather and indifference among the drinking public. Some lovely successes sustain the effort, but these are not widely recognized among Parisian diners.