No, Greg, there were 293 million hectoliters of wine produced in the world in 2018. That is roughly equivalent to 38 billion 750ml bottles. The graph shows Italy alone produced approximately 6.9 quadrillion bottles.
Chuck - is a quadrillion bigger than a zillion?
John - Actually slightly before WW1. It’s an interesting question.
Napoleon was going to invade north Africa. When he was deposed, France restored her king. But pretty much everybody hated him. He had learned a lesson though, because the fact that everybody hated the king is what caused the revolution and the rise of Napoleon in the first place.
So he wanted to give the citizens some entertainment and take their minds off their problems. He figured the best way to do that is to start a war with someone. Britain, always the popular choice, was ruled out because they’d defeated Napoleon for him. So he decided to invade Algeria. Napoleon had planned to do it but was distracted by Nelson and the Brits. But he conveniently left some plans. Rather than re-thinking the issue, the king decided to use those plans and take over Algeria.
The Ottomans ruled it but they really only had the populated northern part of the country. The place was huge, with all kinds of desert nomads in the vast desert regions, who tended to fight with each other now and then, even though they were all moslem. The French got into an argument with the Turk ruler, who whacked the French ambassador with a fly swatter. The French decided that was sufficient pretext to blockade the Algerian ports. That totally didn’t work because 1)the French were never really good at naval escapades anyway (see Nelson), and 2)the Algerians and north Africans had a history of piracy and evading European ships.
This all enraged the French so they invaded in force and took over the country. To keep the peace, the king tried a few ideas and then decided that brutal suppression of the populace was the way to go. That kind of smoothed the way for settlers to show up. So they flooded the place. Land was cheap, you could kill off the locals and increase your holdings, and all your buddies from back home were coming over too. There was a huge influx of Europeans into Algeria throughout the 1800s. And the French actually considered Algeria part of “greater France”, despite the fact that Algerians just considered themselves Algerians.
Seeing how France was having so much fun in Algeria, other European powers wanted in. That limited what France could do. The Italians were interested in Tunisia and Libya, which made France a little more cautious there. And Spain was interested in Morocco, which made France cautious there. So while they were in, the French treated Morocco completely differently than they did Algeria. In addition, nobody questioned the legitimacy of the king, whose lineage went back to Mohammed. Therefore, rather than displace him, which would cause the populace to become rowdy and require brutal suppression, the French more or less left him alone.
While there were a lot more French in Algeria and more wine made there, phylloxera created exactly the same dynamic in both countries. After independence both continued to export and both were restricted by the French for the same reasons. Both countries nationalized the vineyards. When in the 1960s the European Economic Community decided to limit wine imports, both countries ended up closing down a lot of their production. So the aftermath was pretty similar in both places.
Both countries fought for and finally got their independence around 1960. The Moroccans set up a constitutional monarchy. Again, nobody questioned the legitimacy of the king and he wasn’t despised as a puppet created by the Europeans. In Algeria, the army moved to take over and they organized a dictatorship.
The king was smarter than the dictators. He sent his son to college in France. The son graduated from the University of Bordeaux. He liked wine. Then he became king. In the 1990s, he asked the Europeans for help with the wine industry. Spanish and French wine makers went over, including Graillot, Magrez, and Albert Costa form Vall Llach in Priorat.
So Morocco is ahead of the game. They don’t get along with the Algerians, so are unlikely to share any of their expertise.
Greg, my apology. I thought you had referred to gazillions, not just zillions. Zillions is extremely precise, while gazillion and bazillion have a more nebulous meaning. A gazillion apologies to you.
Hey Chuck - I get those big numbers mixed up all the time!!
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Greg, you wrote: “desert nomads in the vast desert regions, who tended to fight with each other now and then, even though they were all moslem.”
![[inquisition.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/ca509cfc4f437b06c2c96ea8a6efc6109476d648.gif "inquisition")
In Europe, different tribes tended to fight with each other now and then, even though they were all christian. Seems some of them were Catholic and some of them were Protestant. Among the moslems, some were Sunni and some were Shia, and that’s before we slice and dice the sufis, the salafists, the alawites, the deobandi and probably just about as many subdivisions as christians. And that’s before we get into the tribal stuff.
I’ll be so glad when we all have indeterminate grayish skins and are all agnostics.
Dan Kravitz