Sarkozy's boozy blunder in Poland

NICHOLAS Sarkozy spent the last few days of May on an official state visit to Poland which turned out to be yet another embarassing episode for the French president.

The Polish conservative president, Lech Kaczynski, and liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk aren't exactly the best of chums. An exchange of gifts is customary on such state visits so to avoid bickering between the two heads of state Mr. Sarkozy's elegant solution was to present each of them with exactly the same gift.

A bottle of cognac almost three hundred years old, a 1713 vintage, from Fountain de Pouyade in the Charente.

Of course, as soon as the name Fountain de Pouyade is mentioned to an expert at the Bureau national du cognac it rings a bell and raises a smile.

In an article in the popular daily newspaper Sudouest from May 2006 a case judged at the tribunal de grande instance in Angoulême describes how the owner of Fountain de Pouyade was fined 3,500 euros for having "deceived customers of the company on the origin and essential qualities and composition of the cognac".

This then called into question the cognac's claimed 1713 vintage. According to one expert " this date simply refers to the date of a notarial acte on the sale of the vineyard that was discovered in the departmental archives". The act, it seems, had nothing to do with the cognac.

The company's website talks of how Henry IV stopped over in the Charante in 1592 and was offered a bottle of Fountain de Pouyade by the owner. Again, this made the expert from the Bureau national du cognac laugh heartily because, he says, "Cognac didn't exist in 1592. The first distilleries in France were founded by the Dutch in 1617".

Not to worry. They'll make a good raffle gift.

source: sudouest.com