Paul B. wrote:Mark Lipton wrote:It was, however, devastating to Austrian wine exports, despite the fact that the wines in question were mostly cheap plonk, and did indirectly result in a tremendous qualitative improvement in Austrian winemaking.
So quality wines benefitted from all-around efforts to improve the image of Austrian wine as part of the fallout - interesting. It can sometimes be hard to wrap one's head around the fact that out of disgrace can come rebirth - even great rebirth, at times.
Although I wasn't into wine in those days, I don't doubt the power of the media in amplifying the whole affair.
I plead guilty to being part of the amplification. I can't find the story I wrote at the time, for The Japan Times and later reprinted in Business Tokyo magazine, but the Japanese had so overreacted to the episode that it was impossible to resist the temptation to write a comic piece about it. (Hopefully I had my facts - and spelling - in better shape at the time.)