Dear Fellow ATHG members, There's an article in this morning's Washington Post that will be of interest to you, with the title, "In France, Thirst for Wine is Drying Up." You should be (well, may be!) able to access this through the website, www.washingtonpost.com As the caption to one of the pictures notes, "The French traditionally drank wine with every meal, but many now say they drink it only a few times a week, if it all." This is surely a major cultural change, and the article provides charts to quantify the size of it since 1980. In that year 24% of the French population were non-consumers of wine, and that rose to 37% in 2000. The numbers of regular (=almost every day) consumers have dropped even more dramatically, from 47% in 1980 to 24% in 2000. The average per capita consumption of wine in France has plummeted from 26.5 gallons in 1960, to 21 gallons in 1980, and down to 14.5 gallons in 2000. However, I assume that wine growers are not yet contemplating suicide, for France still remains the world's largest consumer of wine, downing 16% of the total (followed by Italy, then the US). Pat Prestwich and Scott Haine: this sounds like a call for more fieldwork! Best wishes, Geoffrey Professor Geoffrey J. Giles Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington DC 20024-2126 Office phone: (202)-488-2622 Office fax: (202)-479-9726 Home phone: (703)-960-6693