Excuse me if I warn you before you read on that this week’s column could seriously damage your health. If you think our attitude to alcohol in the UK is ambivalent, you need look no further than across the Channel to see that the French have got their culottes in an even more serious twist. A Parisian court recently found that an editorial piece in Le Parisien entitled ‘The Triumph of Champagne’ should be considered as advertising. As a result, the judge found, newspaper articles on wine, should be subject to the same health and safety guidelines as alcohol advertising and display health warnings. According to the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction (ANPAA), which was awarded €5,000 (£3,750) in damages, ‘any communication in favour of an alcoholic drink, such as the series of articles in favour of Champagne, constitutes advertising and is therefore subject to the public health code’.

France’s alcohol policy is a consequence of the draconian Loi Évin dating from 1991 formulated by one Claude Évin (whose name translates as ‘and wine’). In place of self-regulation and voluntary codes of practice, alcohol advertising is strictly controlled by law. Among a ban on alcohol advertising on TV and sports sponsorship, ads for alcoholic drinks must include a health message to the effect that misuse of alcohol is a health risk. The latest manifestation of the policy is that all wines labels are required to depict a pregnant woman with a red slash across her bulge. Ironically this picture is forbidden in the United States. Pot calling kettle black since the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), which relishes warning labels, were squeamish enough about pictures of females on the label to have banned the nude drawing by the artist Balthus for Bordeaux’ renowned 1993 Château Mouton Rothschild (now a collector’s item of course).

The advertising row has been further fuelled by the leaking of a report to the French newspaper, Libération, showing that the French Government plans to reduce alcohol consumption in France, currently 55 litres per head, by 20 per cent before 2009. The report suggests that wine consumption in France would drop by 50 per cent by this year if the anti-alcohol advertising legislation continues to be strictly enforced. This has proved embarrassing for a government which had just assured wine producers that it would be softening its tough approach on generic advertising. Nicolas Sarkozy himself is an embarrassment to the French wine industry in that wine doesn’t pass his lips at all. Yet it seems that he may actually be sympathetic to the view that personal responsibility counts for more in a democratic country than an interfering nanny state.

It’s not the first time the French authorities have clamped down on editorial independence. A few years back, a court in Beaujolais fined a wine magazine, Lyon Mag, for described Beaujolais as a vin de merde (crap wine). Luckily for the critic, and freedom of expression, the decision was overturned on appeal. It does seem odd that myopia and sanctimony should coexist in a nation synonymous with the production and consumption of many of the great wines of the world. It’s as much a conundrum as the French paradox itself: the relatively low rate of coronary hear disease in relation to the volumes of fat consumed. At least one Frenchman sees the funny side of the state’s public health neurosis. Witness the tube poster warning alcohol tue lentement (alcohol kills slowly) overwitten with the graffiti, je ne suis pas pressé: ‘not to worry, I’m in no great hurry’.

My thanks to the many hundreds of readers who entered our fiendish New Year’s Eve Currant Affairs Trivia Quiz and congratulations to the lucky winner, Mags Moyes, of Fife, who wins a six-bottle case of Bollinger Special Cuvée Champagne, and runner-up Mr. M. Lightfoot, from Essex, who wins a ‘Century of Port’ from Taylor’s. Correct answers: baa bac cbb ccb abc cac bc .

Something For the Weekend 2 February 2008

Under a Fiver

2006 Porta Chardonnay, buy three = £3.99 (or £5.99), Threshers, Wine Rack

From Chile’s quality-minded Córpora group, the Porta is a typically good value chardonnay whose tropical pineappley fruitiness and zingy refreshing acidity makes it an ideal everyday dry white or party quaffer.

Under a Tenner

2006 Gavi, Cristina Ascheri, £9.99, Sainsbury’s, selected stores, and by the case online (0800 636262).

From Matteo Ascheri in Italy’s north-west Alpine foothills region of Piemonte, this is Gavi at its best, a juicy rich example of the local cortese grape whose appley bite adds character and brings mouthwatering acidity to this crisp, Italian dry white. Drink it chilled with grilled white fish.

Splash Out

2004 Domaine des Bosquets, Famille Bréchet, Gigondas, £14.95, Jeroboams shops, London (020 7730 8108 – www.jeroboams.co.uk).

From the Bréchet family vineyards in the Dentelles de Montmirail, this is a winter warming red in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape mould, a classic southern Rhône blend whose opulent plum and blackberry fruitiness is suffused with spice and the necessary tannins and acidity for wintery casseroles and daubes.