France discovers non-French wine

Amid France's current spate of introspective navel-gazing about the dire state of the market for French wine both at home and abroad, with more French wine producers said to be on the brink of bankruptcy than in living memory, French retailers are steadily introducing their customers to the supposed dastardly opposition from the New World.

Last weekend in Paris I was amazed to see the hugely successful, and famously sweet, Australian brand [yellowtail] (sic) in my local branch of Nicolas, France's most important specialist wine retailer by far. This cheeky little antipodean was on sale, from eye-catching cases stacked on...