Word: grapes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...ISSUE ON THE TABLE WAS OILSEED production. But what turned the tables was the power and the quality of the grape -- from California, largely. On Friday, U.S. and E.C. trade representatives announced an agreement that reverses Europe's previous refusal to reduce oilseed production, which in turn should head off a transatlantic trade war. Ultimately at stake: a new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which some say could generate a trillion dollars in trade over the coming decade...
...Walcott never whines or indulges in unseemly confessions; he is, in fact, inordinately harsh with himself. Sometimes he claims his material is beyond or beneath the power of his art. In Gros-Ilet, he describes a small, desolate island village and concludes, "This is not the grape-purple Aegean. / There is no wine here, no cheese, the almonds are green, / the sea grapes bitter, the language is that of slaves." At other times, he is worried that his devotion to the English language has severed him from the people of his childhood. The Light of the World portrays the visiting...
...department of Charente, which includes the Cognac area, approved the treaty by a mere 13 votes out of 178,672 cast. Much of the opposition came from farmers. All rural France resented the agricultural-subsidy cutbacks initiated by Brussels, but even though they do not directly affect Charente grape growers, other regulations do. Brussels limits the amount of distilled wine they can sell according to volume rather than alcohol content, an unfair rule, they claim. And Big Brother even intrudes into their leisure time by restricting the hunting of migratory birds...
Rural alienation runs deep. "They signed this complicated treaty without telling anyone," said Michel Forgeron, a Segonzac grape grower whose calloused hands and weathered face attest to a life outdoors. "Now we don't know where we are going." Until recently, he sold the spirits he distilled from 40 acres to Cognac's family firms. Now multinationals such as Seagram and Guinness have moved in: even Monnet's old company was once sold to Germans and then to Britons. "Decision makers in Toronto or Paris do not care whether we live or die," said Forgeron's wife Francine...
This is not the first time grape growers have fought this burrowing louse, which is indigenous to North America east of the Rockies. In the late 19th century, phylloxeras somehow spread to vineyards in Europe and California, devastating more than 2.5 million acres in France alone. What finally brought the plague under control was the discovery that classic European varietals like Chardonnay could be successfully grafted onto native American rootstalks that resisted the voracious...