National disgrace? Chilean is Tour de France wine sponsor
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
How angry would Americans be if a British company sponsored the Fourth of July? No doubt a Twitter-pocalypse would result, with much rending of hashtags. So it’s not surprising to see that a group of French winemakers are threatening to disrupt this year’s Tour de France, the greatest bike race in the world, because a Chilean producer is the tour’s wine sponsor.
The Wine Curmudgeon appreciates the winemakers’ grande colere; wine is part of French life in a way those of us here can only imagine, and the tour is almost as important. I used to cover cycling, and there isn’t that much to see. Nevertheless, millions of people line French highways every year to watch for a couple of minutes as the riders flash by.
Somehow, though, the Chilean Cono Sur and its Bicicleta brand is sponsoring the tour. Said one French winemaker from the Languedoc in southern France: “We feel humiliated,” and it’s hard to argue with him. Even the NFL, for all of its faux pas, has the good sense to sell itself to Bud Light instead of a German beer. Even more humiliating, the tour’s sponsor says it sees nothing wrong with the deal, showing that bosses are bosses regardless of nationality.
Which is not to say Cono Sur makes crummy wine. Far from it — the Bicicleta pinot noir is in the $10 Hall of Fame, and the brand finished sixth in last year’s best cheap wine poll. Still, one would think someone at Cono Sur would have suspected that French winemakers, notorious for their protests, would object and that the brand would have to pay the PR consequences.
Finally, given all of cycling’s problems, this controversy is going to make the sport — which is actually quite amazing, given what the riders do and which includes cycling up the side of an Alp — look even sillier. Which, given how silly it looks now, would have seemed impossible just a couple of weeks ago.
As a wine grower in France, the problem lies more with the French government than the organisers. Sponsorship/ publicity and advertising of alcohol is banned within the country, so Cono Sur will only get exposure on days when the Tour is ‘abroad’.
Unfortunately Budweiser is now owned by InBev a Belgian Company.
True, but the beer is still made in the U.S., which was my point.