Raise your 'flute' to France and her expertise in the exquisite art of 'viniculture'.

[Surya Gayatri]

France wine country toasted with World Heritage status

12th century church of Chavot in the Champagne-Ardenne region.

(CNN)France's world renowned wine country was toasted twice Saturday with world heritage status by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The U.N.'s cultural body bestowed the special status on the historic hillsides and properties where the sparkling wines of Champagne are produced, as well as the famous vineyards that grace the slopes of Burgundy.

The designation covers the Champagne hillsides, houses and cellars where "the method of producing sparkling wines was developed on the principle of secondary fermentation in the bottle since the early 17th century to its early industrialization in the 19th century," UNESCO said in a statement.

The vineyards in Hautvilliers, Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Saint-Nicaise Hill in Reims, and the Avenue de Champagne and Fort Chabrol in Epernay bear "clear testimony to the development of a very specialized artisan activity that has become an agro-industrial enterprise," the statement said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/04/world/unesco-champagne-burgundy/

_______________________
Here's to France and the gift she has given to the world...

[raouldukelives]

1. Too bad climate change is going to wipe it all out.

Kind of funny really.

The only people who can afford to enjoy the finest of this world are the main ones investing in and profiting from those assuring it will never produce them again, for anyone else.

If that ain't textbook selfishness, I don't know what is.

[hobbit709]

2. Climate change is what wiped the English wine industry and gave France its start.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. I wouldn't qualify the families who own and operate

these wineries as 'textbook selfish'.

Wine-growing is hard and sometimes thankless work, with the 'fruits' not able to be harvested until years later.

[raouldukelives]

4. Sorry for the confusion. Nor would I.

The selfish are the ones who invest in and profit from the corporations that prevent the horrible truth.

That the world we know and love, the animals and plants, the farmers and fields, the entire basis upon what everything we know was allowed to evolve and evolve from is being destroyed, forever, by their greed.

In between all of this they gorge themselves on the finest this world can afford in food, drink, clothing, cars, vanity, land and reality.

With all too many people willing to fall all over themselves to provide it to them for a little taste of that distilled misery. So very willing to handle accounts, to massage them, to make trades, to schedule appointments, to cook lovely meals, to entertain them, to laugh at their jokes and treat them as serious people when they wear the masque of death.

All it costs is the future. A price they are well prepared for everyone and everything that ever was or will be to be used as payment.

[Surya Gayatri]

5. ^^^This!^^^

"...In between all of this they gorge themselves on the finest this world can afford in food, drink, clothing, cars, vanity, land and reality."

Not to mention million-dollar wine "collections".