Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


There are also EU politics involved. Zielona Gora has vineyards on the main hill and around town as well. There is even a wine making museum there. I was surprised that I couldn't find any Polish wines for sale there in the main shops. The locals informed me that it was because Poland's ascension agreement with the EU prohibited Polish wine from being sold in the common market. Apparently the French, Italian, and German winemakers were concerned about competing with Polish wine. That combined with avoiding paying taxes makes buying Polish wine like bootlegging. I needed a local to make a call to a friend, and then we met in a parking lot in town. The quality of the wine was fine. One vintner said he had an Italian who regularly came and bought his wine for his Italian restaurant.

It appears the "free market" in the EU isn't so free after all.

Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


Yes, it felt that way, but it was probably just a tax dodge.

I found more about the problem here:

Poland's accession to the EU was supposed to be a new dawn for Polish winegrowing. Unfortunately, however, certain provisions within Polish law, along with a number of legal and administrative obstacles, are not only stymieing the development of wine production in Poland, but also limiting Polish farmers' opportunities to seek relevant EU funding.

eurocare.org/newsroom/newsletter/2011/may_june_2011/questions_from_meps/question_to_the_commission_on_wine_production_from_grapes_grown_in_poland_and_eu_by_tomasz_piotr_poreba_ecr

The problem appears to be limited to fermenting grapes, since it is easy to purchase alcoholic drinks made from other fruits.

So it appears to be that Polish regulation hinders commerce, as in many other areas with Poland. I blame it on the bureaucratic vestiges of the old communist regime that politicians find convenient for dispensing political patronage jobs.

Food / Are there any Polish wines worth purchasing? [65]


They certainly have vineyards and a wine festival is held Zielona Gora in September. Wine making there dates back to at least 1314 during the Piast duchy of Głogow. The locals told me that it is perfectly legal to make wine in Poland, to possess the wine, and to drink it. The legal problem comes when someone tries to actually sell it. The result is that sales have become hush-hush.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [219]

Józef Piłsudski's foreign minister Józef Beck answered your question best, "We would have defeated Russia, and afterwards we would be taking Hitler's cows out to pasture in the Urals." No educated Slav could have read Hitler and other German authors who were advocating expanding German borders by pushing the Slavic people further East and come to a different conclusion. Yet, the Slovaks, and the Slavs in the failing USSR who were starved under Stalin, were quick to jump and aid the Nazis by attacking their Slavic brothers in Poland. Hitler didn't keep his treaty with Stalin, who was supplying the Nazi war machine with raw materials and minerals until the day Hitler invaded the USSR, and Hitler would not have kept any treaty with Poland after the USSR had been defeated.

The better point to ponder is how history might be different if Poles and others had headed Piłsudski's call to recreate the Commonwealth, possibly including the modern rump state of Lithuania, and thus deny the Soviet Union Belarus and Ukraine. The alliance with Ukraine would have gained the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, making a quick war with Poland less likely to succeed. Piłsudski was very much opposed to the Treaty of Riga and selling out the Ukies. History has proved him very wise.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [219]

Interbellum Poland had a policy of strict neutrality between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The following author also soundly refutes the absurd claim by our trolls that Poland conspired to carve up Czechoslovakia:

Anna M. Cienciala, The Foreign Policy Of Józef Piłsudski And Józef Beck, 1926-1939: Misconceptions And Interpretations.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [219]


The difference is that people paid to watch Houdini perform, and people really wanted to see him.

Houdini didn't pay to be a member of a forum so he could disparage the country to which he emigrated and where he earned is fame and fortune.

History / How different would WW2 turned out if Poland accepted Hitler's offer [219]

Pilsudski always claimed that he was a Lithuanian, and he wanted to recreate the Commonwealth, which was more than only Poland.

It was the idiot Dmowski who had a small minded view of only Poland.

The events of WWII proved that Pilsudski was correct. He was a great man surrounded by idiots, and not only in Poland.