French wine (part one of many)

A while back we mentioned several things that the French do very well, and contrary to the expectation of some, did not include wine.  We said that we would explain later.  Well, later is now!

Unquestionably, there are some great French wines.  I'd go as far as to say there are a lot of great French wines.  But you know what?  There are a lot of crappy ones too.  While that's probably true of just about every wine producing region, French wines seem to take an especially perverse pleasure out of living off of their prior body of work rather than on their individual goodness.  The legend of French wine has led in some cases to eyebrow-raising prices for some pretty mediocre product.  

I can't wax poetic about the virtues of Château Lafite or any of the other monster premier growths, because I wouldn't be willing to pay the going rate for a glass of it, much less a bottle.  We did splurge on a case of St. Emilion (Bordeaux) 2000 that is fabulous.  Not cheap, but well-balanced, rich and with lots of identifiable flavors and a beautiful complexity.  We have also gotten pretty good at experimenting with the low- to mid-priced wines here, however, and the quality is all over the map in this range.  As is probably no surprise, price is not a great indicator of quality.  We've had bottles for 4 euros that were nice and we bought again (particularly rosés in the summer) and 20 euro bottles that were watery and totally without character.

Please don't feel bad for us though.  France is still a pretty good place to have wine, on balance.  You easily get a wonderfully drinkable dinner wine for 3 euros, or about $4.75 at today's exchange rate.  You have a big selection of wines at your supermarket.  And where in the U.S. can you order a bottle of wine with your delivered pizza?

I'm sure there will be more on this topic, as it is such a pervasive part of life here.