Americans, the new winos

Or oenophiles as wine-drinkers actually are called. The Daily Telegraph reports:

America is on course to overtake France as the world's number one wine drinking nation as the Gallic taste for vin ordinaire withers.

Figures released ahead of the world's biggest wine fair, Vinexpo in Bordeaux, show that national consumption has fallen so low that the French will be eclipsed by the Americans in 2010.

Quite disappointing news for the many French winemakers who want the new president Sarkozy to do more for the industry. But Sarkozy is proud to be a teetotal and a clean-living president (even though meeting with the Russian president at the G8 summit tells another story).

So what can one say? The world is changing. A Frenchman who doesn’t like eating and drinking and Americans who love wine. What has the world come to?!