Champagne-Ardenne is famous throughout the world as France's number one producer of alfalfa. Alfalfa is widely held to be a galactagogue (a substance that promotes lactation.) It is also known to reduce fertility in sheep. Some ewes have been known to take advantage of this, resulting in greater promiscuity and a general lowering of moral standards in the sheep population. Frequently though, the alfalfa also makes them lactate furiously, thereby limiting their scope for recreational sex. Alfalfa also features in Joseph Heller's novel 'Catch 22'. Major Major's father receives a government subsidy for every strip of land he doesn't grow alfalfa on. He uses the subsidy to buy more land not to grow alfalfa on.
The production of sparkling wine in Champagne nearly ended 100 years ago, when the phylloxera louse developed a taste for the local vines. The louse is a native of North America, and it's thought the original mating pair were from Maryland and may have been honeymooning in Europe when they discovered Champagne's vines and decided to settle. Phylloxera belong to the suborder Sternorrhyncha, which means their mouthparts are towards the back of the head. This enables them to binge-eat without anyone noticing. They are also sexually dimorphic, which just means that the males are different from the females. Well duh. An extreme example of sexual dimorphism is the Osedax worm. The females live off the bones of dead whales, while the males live inside the females and don't develop past the larval stage, except to produce vast amounts of sperm. They also spend most of the day in their room playing loud music. With Bonellia viridis, by contrast, the female swallows the males, who then live inside her genital sac. But I digress. Champagne's grape-growers reacted swiftly to the crisis and buried a toad under each vine. Phylloxera are notoriously squeamish about toads.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
No comments:
Post a Comment