In a brief four years, Impact calculates that Italian wine imports to this country plunged well over 50 percent, to about 10.2 million cases.

Brazilian wine imports soared 45 percent, and imports from Chile jumped 60 percent.

Then he founded a wine import and distribution company.

This comes at a time when total wine imports into the United States are declining.

Argentine wine represented only 1 percent of total wine imports last year into the United States and Britain, this country's two largest foreign wine markets.

Due to the Royal Charter, the Company gained a monopoly over wine imports from Gascony.

One quarter of this is wine imports.

In the meantime, regional authorities stepped in to sharply curb all wine imports, so that the local wine supply would take priority.

The ban on wine imports came at a time of worsening relations between the countries.

The United States market accounts for about 20 percent of France's wine imports.