Money is perceived as dirty, wealth as evil, and success, talent and fame as things to envy, not to admire. It's a culture that has spawned punishing taxes on wealth, income and inheritance that play havoc in France's vineyard regions. To understand the upheavals now taking place in French winemaking families, you need look no further than these taxes. They drive a wedge between family members, who inevitably end up with opposite interests. So they bicker, sue each other, make slanderous attacks in the media.
Brothers oppose brothers, parents oppose children, cousins oppose other relations.
To these people, originally all united in the common pursuit of making fine wine from fine vineyards, the experience is sad and painful. It got much worse for the winemaking families in the early 1980s, after France passed one of Europe's heaviest wealth taxes on individuals. Meanwhile, publicly held corporations and their leaders got attractive tax breaks. As wine consumers, we like to identify wines with the families that have put their wineries on the map. But at the rate things are going, the traditional proprietors will soon be history in France.