Not the number of bottles in Snooth's database (just yet), but far worse, for it is the number of bottles worth of excess wine that is scheduled to be destroyed across Europe.

It's an interesting dichotomy as on one hand Europe makes most of the high end wine in the world and people are rightly dismayed when a prestigious wine growing region gets decimated by flooding or hail (here too). Yet, simultaneously, a year's worth of sub-standard French production remains unsold, and sits in tanks, while growers negotiate with the European government for funding to distill it into fuel.

With now fully one quarter of Spanish wine being used for industrial purposes its time for reform. People (and people reading this especially) love wine, but enough with the poor substandard stuff. You churn that out for too long and people will ultimately vote with their feet and wallets, and thats exactly what has happened here. In the UK, Australian and Chilean imports have increased 20 fold in the last decade, while French wine imports dropped by 3% last year alone. I tasted far too many cheap, insipid, bad French and Italian wines while looking for undiscovered gems at my last job.

The old world needs to adapt. Its the same as how off-shoring has impacted communities here - call centers and car assembly can be done cheaper elsewhere, so the factory will get moved. Its obviously hard for the people suddenly without work to adjust, but at least here, there's an option, a clear route to take - make better wine!

Assume the cheap stuff will get made in the new world where labor costs are lower, and put the effort in to make better wine. Of course, this wont work for every producer, there's simply too much volume, but for the canny ones who move fast its a smart choice. But do it fast, while the Old World still has the perceived edge in quality, otherwise the perception of 'overpriced' won't be shaken off.

As for the billion bottles, surely there's a better use? Well, how about mouthwash? As a sweet toothed Brit, I need all the help I can get here.

Finally, with the second link today (the word 'hail') I link to a new wine blog. The Wine Messenger blog. They don't post daily (yet - for shame) but they do post smart - lots of commentary from wineries and educational pieces. You may have already seen the authors, Stephen and Rodolphe, posting comments on the Snooth blog.

Have a great weekend!