More news from Cornas

Here’s a short follow up on my two previous posts (here’s the first one, and here is the second one) regarding the Cornas municipality’s plan to develop the Les Mazards vineyards by ripping up 100-year-old vines and setting up buildings instead.

According to recent communications received from the Association Cornas les coteaux d’abord (Cornas vineyards first, literally translated), the fight is getting organized and being played out at the local, regional and political level. The Association is contesting the development plans submitted by the municipality, and has succeeded in getting a “commissaire enquêteur” (investigating commissionner – again, my poor translation) to come to Cornas for three days to hear what people have to say about the project. A local member of the National Assembly has sided with the association, and the region’s Conseiller Général is also coming to town this week to hear more about the situation.

It seems like a tough fight, though. The municipality seems to want to finalize approval for the project before the end of the year – which is also, interestingly enough, before the next municipal elections in March 2008. Lots of work to do in order to stop this: in total, 3.5 hectares of prime vineyard could be affected, it seems, and built up with 4-story buildings in an area where there are only individual houses, so far.

If you feel like joining in to this struggle to save these vineyards (including some by legendary producer Auguste Clape), you’ll find the instructions for adding your voice to the petition launched by the association or for writing the mayor of Cornas in my previous posts.