So I collect wine and have a lot of winemaker friends and not one would even think of using this. The Wikipedia article lacks any proof for its numbers. There is one link to a story that is an interview with 2 people who would be named to say they use it.

A good 3rd of my wine collection is French.

I also make (have a 1/2 acre vineyard of my own) and collect wine and know wine makers. Yes none of them would use it. But they're not working for Gallo etc.

I am pretty sure the practice is mostly non-existent in Europe. At least in appellation wines.

But when people complain that low-cost wines are better in the new world, my experience is that they are invariably referring to the fact that they can get a consistent fruit forward 'shiraz' for $13 but when they taste a cheap French wine it's nothing like that.

Sorry, I did not consider Gallo to be wine :)

Fair point however.

I have found in the last couple of years some makers have started to move to more of a French style. In the world of whites, the cougar juice is giving way to a better old world style wine.

I agree there are some suspect fruit bombs out there that people think wine should taste like. I hope that is changing.

Do you have some beginner-friendly links on what is and not allowed in French winemaking. I've always thought I'm paying only for the "Frenchness" and not anything specific about the winemaking process itself.

E.g., kinda like the German beer-making standard vs. "anything goes" Belgian-style ales.

Sorry for being off-topic but regarding the Reinheitsgebot this is really interesting:

https://www.europeanbeerguide.net/reinheit.htm

I'd also be interested to know what is and isn't allowed in wine.

I'm not saying I prefer this wine to that, merely that French wine is not price competitive on the whole for 2/3 of the French wine available to me.