 |
 |
|
|
|||
 |
 |
|
|
|||
|
|
 |
|
|
LES "VINS DE FRANCE"
-1-
There's always a reason for being entered in the Variations
Xpo. This time we had to buy a bunch of decks to get the one we wanted and the
"Vins de France" deck was one of them: collateral damage, so to speak.
But when we looked at the cards, they didn't look like expected. So we checked
our collection and there were 2 of them there, but neither looked like the new
found deck. So now we show you the 3 variations that we have at the moment. I
don't think another will turn up, but one can never tell. We could have
shown only a few cards to illustrate the differences between the editions
adequately, but choose to show all the cards in the deck. The designs deserve
that and you can brush up your knowledge about French wines just a tiny bit.
Well, it seems that indeed one can never tell. I made this xpo in January 2015
and now, almost 5 years later, a different version has turned up. It's an
advertising deck for "La Villageoise Margnat", a brand that was owned
by the Societé de Vins de France (SVF). This company was bought by the Margnat
SA (the brothers Paul, Robert and Jacques Margnat) in 1967. Although the
Villageoise Margnat brand was launched around the same time that the first
Grimaud edition was published, I don't think it was an earlier edition, but an
advertising variation of the first Grimaud edition. Because it advertises one
special brand, the names of the different wines were left out, even on the
second joker.
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
The differences start to become clear when we look at the cards above. The first card presents the oldest version of the three. The second row shows an advertising variation of the first edition. The third row of cards most likely shows the second edition and the last row the latest edition. In all the suits each wine is represented by a certain drawn figure and this is the same in each edition. However, the Jack of Spades is the exception: here above he represents the Pouilly wine in the first edition, but the same figure represents the Sancerre wine in the second (and third) edition.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
According to the Fournier catalogue the first edition dates from 1979, but I have reason to believe that it might have been a year earlier. The edition was probably mainly aimed at the internal French market: the indices are French. However, the word "France" would be superfluous for the French, as any Frenchman or woman would probably know the wine and the region. It was probably used as a line filler, which brings us to the most eye catching difference: the outline that is formed by the words and indices in the first edition. It's absent in the following editions and in the advertising variation of the first edition.
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
In the second edition the double image still shows 2 different portraits of two different wine regions. Their names are mentioned a single time only and this opens up the design. The indices are English and just a bit larger now. It was probably published not long after the first edition, so in the early 1980's.
