Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Will your car be happier with some nice French Chardonnay?

“Do you want to try what will be going into your tank?” asks Olivier Gibelin, snifing a glass of deep red wine. This story, A wine of character served up at the gas pump, is in today's edition of the International Herald Tribune. With French wine in crisis and the worldwide overproduction, France is now distilling some of its AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) wines into fuel.

The wine is first turned into ethanol, and then sold to oil refineries, where it is used as a gasoline additive. This is part of a European campaign to increase the use of renewable fuels. By 2010, the pourcentage of ethanol in French gasoline is supposed to reach 5.75%.

France exports some of its gasoline to the United States, so, sometime next year, some Americans will be pumping gas containing a small amount of Chardonnay or Pinot Noir...Read the full story.

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