Vintage moment as French wine magazine crowns Macron 'personality of the year'

Emmanuel Macron has become the first head of state to be awarded the title of "personality of the year" by the Revue du Vin de France wine magazine. The title, for 2022, comes thanks to his support for France's wine industry, whose "extraordinary richness" he has praised. 

"For the first time in 40 years, you can have the audacity to say, like d'Artagnan and Portos (referring to The Three Musketeers): 'I drink wine every day, at noon and in the evening', said Denis Saverot, editor of Revue du vin de France (RVF), during a ceremony in Paris earlier this week. 

The honour was bestowed upon Macron because he "systematically defends wine", whereas his predecessors were either "indifferent" or "adversaries" of the drink, explained Saverot.

• People make a living out of wine, but it's also killing them: welcome to the French paradox
• French wine producers brace for massive losses as cold snap decimates crops

Macron made an especially good impression on the wine sector in 2018 when he made assurances that during his term in office there would be no changes to toughen the Evin law that regulates advertising alcoholic beverages since 1991.

This came to the great displeasure of organisations fighting against alcoholism.

Also, in 2019, the French government quietly abandoned a campaign urging people to refrain from drinking alcohol during the month of January. Dry January or janvier sobre' promoted "total abstinence" of all alcohol.

With its 85,000 farms and several billion euros of trade surplus, the wine sector makes up a significant part of the French economy.