French clarets owe debt to English, Scots [audio 6min @ 9:35]

"Making History" listener Bill Cronin was surprised by a plaque he saw whilst visiting Narbonne, France, for a short break. It recalls a riot by wine-growers in May 1907 in which 5 people died. The suggestion is that the protest was about the importing of Algerian wine and it laid the foundations for the Appellation system found in France."Making History" consulted Billy Kay, the co-author of Knee Deep in Claret and the author of The Scottish World. He explained that the disturbances in Narbonne came at the end of a period in which the French wine industry, particularly in the Languedoc, had grown considerably. The arrival of the railways in the middle of the 19th century enabled wine to be moved to the newly industrialised and urbanised centres of France and in this way became the national drink. It was not uncommon, particularly in bad years, for wines to be imported from different regions or even French colonies to be blended. This was bad news for growers but not so much for the middlemen, who were involved in blending or shipping. But the idea of an Appellation, which protected growers and regional grape varieties, didn't actually come in until the 1930s. Billy Kay pointed out that our idea of an insular, even conservative, wine industry in France isn't that accurate. In particular, the English and Scots played a significant role in the development of claret, which became a national drink (particularly north of the border). Indeed, many of the families involved in blending and marketing wines from Bordeaux, were northern European Protestants living outside the city walls.