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U.S. House toasts wine victory over France Wednesday June 7, 07:19 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The legislative body that introduced "freedom fries" to the world has once again thumbed its nose at France.
The U.S. House of Representatives, where french fries were renamed in anger at France's opposition to the Iraq war, late on Tuesday passed a resolution honouring a landmark 1976 wine tasting that saw California's Napa Valley beat the best Bordeaux and Burgundy had to offer.
That surprise victory in a blind tasting thirty years ago uncorked an industry that now pours $50 billion into the U.S. economy.
France's winemakers have suffered as the two longtime allies have clashed over the war in Iraq.
An American boycott of French wines cost the French wine industry $112 million in the six months after the March 2003 Iraqi invasion.
U.S. House Of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert threatened in 2003 to label French wines with a warning that they might be refined with bovine blood, though that practice ended in 1997.
Bastards...