Tuesday 9 June 2009

Rosé wine saved … but the battle for non-GM rice goes on / le vin rosé sauvé … la bataille pour le riz non-GM continue

Good news today – that the European Union will not after all allow rosé wine to be made by mixing red and white wines. The winemakers of France, Spain and Italy have been campaigning against this in order to preserve the traditional method of making rosé with red grapes and taking the juice from the skins early in the process.

De bonne nouvelle aujourd'hui – l'Union européenne a decidé de ne permettre pas le mélange des vins rouges et blancs pour faire le vin rosé. Les vignorons de la France, l'Espagne et l'Italie ont fait campagne pour garder la methode traditionelle.

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We drank to this in the garden at lunchtime today with a glass of rosé from the Domaine des Pascales in Gabian.

And now the battle to preserve non-GM rice / et puis la campagne pour garder le riz non-GM….

On the Indian Earth blog today emmani has posted a photo-journalist piece about rice which links to the Greenpeace Hands off our Rice petition and campaign. GM rice would be detrimental to the way of life, livelihood and nutrition of people all over the world. This is an important issue so please take a few minutes to read, listen and, I hope, sign the petition.

Definitely not GM …

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Our first St Pierre tomato / la première tomate St Pierre.

5 comments:

EB said...

No! I had always thought the joke about "mixing the 2 and call it rose" was quite funny - to think it could happen for real is horrendous. So good news from the EU this time - I hope all the anti's will take account of this. I will follow your link about the rice.

Drew said...

if it tastes good, drink it....

Drew said...

drew also notes that rose champagne is made by blending red and white wines (OK, some is made by the saignee method, but by no means all of it)

chaiselongue said...

EB: yes, I always thought mixing red and white was a joke too. But it is done in Australia and California. I'm glad it won't be done in Europe now, except for some pink champagne ... as Drew says

Drew: yes, but pink champagne isn't really serious wine, is it? I agree wine should taste good and I wouldn't drink it if it didn't, but this is more about stopping globalisation and the production of bland wines for the market versus centuries of tradition of producing good wine with local character. I'm glad that the latter has won, this time.

Rowena said...

That is good news indeed...I had no idea. The nerve of wanting to mix red and white to get rosé. %#!?&!!

Aside from all that, I realize that my lust for another tomato(s) is still growing strong. I just had to look up St Pierre after seeing your photo and found them at Bakers Creek. They're running a free shipping special right now. I'll try to limit myself to only 20 dollars worth of seeds!