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Comment by gregman1 | Hacker News Reader

As long as France is in EU no other country on earth can import good wine. Cheap - probably, heavily controlled and in many cases partially owned by French or in some rare cases other European companies (like in Chilean or Argentinian cases). This market is rather hardcore and kinda monopolized in EU. Go ask anyone who knows wine market or works at a Georgian (or any ex-Soviet restaurant). Georgian wine enjoyed this kind of monopoly in USSR so no surprise here. During that time wine from Moldova wine was an affordable great quality underdog.

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I don't really understand your point here. Sure France is overly protective about their wine, like every country tries to protect their flagship industry. And inside the EU there are many other wine-producing countries who want to protect their producers too.

But I can buy Georgian wine in a few shops and restaurants here, even those made in kvevri. I can buy small-batch Serbian (Serbia is not in the EU either) orange wine too. It's hard to import into the EU? I'm sure it is, the rules are very strict, but it's doable.

That makes no sense at all. There are plenty of other wine countries already in the EU. While France keeps strong on regional designations and standards, there is no one blocking wine imports except where they violate quality standards (think Californian wines full of pesticides not allowed in the EU). Every big French supermarket has Georgian wines alongside Portuguese, Croatian, ...

Well, here in BG it is hard to find French wine. There's plenty of Italian, Spanish, Chilean and Argentinian wine.

And also a healthy percent of local Bulgarian wine.

What are you talking about, there are multiple wine-producing regions in the EU, and there is absolutely no problem finding Spanish, Italian or even German wine in any EU country. Even Georgian wines can be found, if you know what to look for

At least in France it's quite complicated to find wine from elsewhere unless you go to wine retailers.

it's true but basically they don't sell them because people wouldn't buy them

Have you considered the outside chance that might be due to French nationalistic pride and wine snobbery, instead of legal chicanery?

There are a lot of Georgian wines in EU. Especially the recently popular orange wines(white wine made like red wine).

I recently tried an orange wine from a very good maker in Austria, with excellent whites and reds. I don't like the orange wine though, not my taste. I wonder why it is so popular.

Every orange wine is different, so one is not representative.

For example I like the funky, wild ones.

But besides the taste, one thing people tend to like about those wines, although it's not reserved to orange wines, is the natural manufacturing process that for example also often means less or even no added sulfites. For example my wife can't drink wine with a lots of sulfites, she gets stuffed nose immediately and a headache later. While I'm not that sensitive, even I can feel it's easier to process for my body.

I thought that's called "hangover" and you just need to drink more when that happens.

I like it because it differs a lot from whites and reds and allows to get a different perspective on how wine can taste. While the difference within whites and within reds can be huge, the orange wine tastes like something completely alien, yet it can be very tasty.

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