Champagne Riots
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The Champagne Riots of 1911 resulted from a series of problems faced by grape growers in the Champagne area of France. These included four years of disastrous crop losses, the infestation of the phylloxera louse that destroyed 15,000 acres (61 km²) of vineyards that year alone, low income, and the belief that wine merchants were using grapes from Germany and Spain. The precipitating event may have been the announcement by the French government that it would delimit by decree the exact geographic area that would be granted economic advantage and protection by being awarded the Champagne appellation.
Thousands of wine growers violently vented their frustration and anger by burning vineyards, sacking the cellars of wine merchants, ransacking houses, destroying stores of wine, and burning houses and other buildings.
[edit] See also
[edit] Source
- Johnson, Hugh. Vintage: The Story of Wine. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
