Why Don't I Get to Wave a Pitchfork Too?

For the past few weeks, the viticulteurs (winemakers, wine growers, vinificateurs, oenologues, whatever you want to call them) in Languedoc-Roussillon have been rioting in protest to the wine economic crisis here in France. For those of you who don't know, wine prices in France have hit rock-bottom due to overproduction and competition from New World Wines.

Now, you have to respect a people who are so enamored by the gastronomical place that wine takes in their culture that they're willing to destroy 2 supermarkets, 2 banks, and an import-control office for it while getting tear-gassed by the police. France is the only place in the world where people will riot over wine, and get taken seriously for it. If this were to happen in Napa - which it wouldn't because people are far too conscious of their images, and Napa wines still have yet to suffer the humilation of having to distill their harvest - the protesters would be laughed out of St. Helena. Protesting wine would just be so... so French.