Wine with Leslie: French recommendations as the home of wine convulses under austerity

With the 'Bloquons Tout' (block everything) protest movement manifest all over the nation (in wine regions as well as the cities), I thought I would give France a tiny dig-out and feature their wines this week.

A railway worker holds a smoke bomb in the Gare de Lyon train station, during the « Bloquons Tout » (Block Everything) protest movement in Paris, France, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Wine was first made in the fertile crescent in Mesopotamia on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates at the beginning of civilisation, and we have clay tablets that document it. 

The oldest wineries we have found are in Armenia and Georgia (c.4000 BCE) and wine continues to be made in those countries (increasingly tasty wine too).