A season of promise

What the world needs now, is love, sweet love

Every Spring, the promise of new beginnings and new life can be seen in the buds and leaves of vines as they burgeon with vital green shoots and tendrils, exuberantly attaching themselves to any support they can find. We too begin anew, reaching out with renewed optimism to find fresh opportunities, attaching ourselves to projects and enterprises that energise and inspire us.

But I’ve not really been feeling it, or have been too caught up in other things to be receptive (hence the tardiness and irregularity of these posts). On the contrary, these early Spring days have not yet energised or inspired, even though there’s been much for which to be thankful.

There is of course also a lot of reasons to feel glum. And though people seem to be carrying on as usual with their lives, there is a general malaise weighing on the world, despite signs that would belie this. The sun rises and sets, more and more people seem to be actively keeping fit (an expression of hope if ever there was one), restaurants, cafés, bars, and terraces are full everywhere in Paris, lovers are kissing on and under bridges, and everywhere else they find themselves, babies and dogs elicit smiles, and chattering birdsong brings joyful resonance to the quiet of early morning walks in parks and along the Seine.

Among those things about which there is glumness is the threat of tariffs on wine, at a time when vintners are feeling particularly vulnerable and put upon, following one of the worst vintages of the past two hundred years.

Every year for the past 15 years I've overseen the translation of a book on the World Commodities Markets (CyclOpe - Economica) and in one of the texts, I came across the expression, doux commerce. The author of the text, Philippe Chalmin, who holds the economics chair at the University of Paris Dauphine, is also the editor of the book. We had a chat about this term, trying to find an English equivalent and agreed that doux commerce (which could be translated as ‘gentle trade’) is also accepted and understood in English. The text addresses ‘the end of international commercial trade diplomacy’, the GATT, WTO, Doha, multilateralism, and the implementation of tariffs by the United States.

Tariffs are the opposite of an ‘entente cordial’, of ‘doux commerce’ and the gentle trade of goods and services that provide mutually beneficial rewards. They are agressive, small-minded, short-sighted, bellicose and unfriendly, and will undoubtedly only serve an elite (if they serve anyone at all), penalising the vast majority who might otherwise find pleasure and comfort in the quintessentially civilised act of sharing a bottle of wine.

The theory of doux commerce, is that it led to “trade becoming associated with peaceful and inoffensive activities representative of the "civilised" West of European nations.” Speaking of doux commerce, Edmund Burke suggested that it is not commerce that civilises humans, it is that humans are civilised through culture, which enables them to engage in commerce. This distinction clearly plants culture in the fore of positive human enterprise, subsequently enabling peaceful trade.

Wine is of course emblematic of culture, and its civilising influence—throughout history, wherever the vine has flourished, the arts and culture follow—offers a paradigm of peace and prosperity that celebrates and embodies human ingenuity and innovation. Without necessarily being the commodity being traded, it has traditionally been present in the conclusion of commercial agreements and deals throughout history. Concluding deals, shaking hands, and toasting with wine to new partnerships and alliances is still quite common.

So where is that world of doux commerce so keenly sought by visionaries, philosophers, poets, idealists, romantics, and sages through the ages? That world of peace and prosperity where the abundant riches of the earth are shared for the benefit of all. Materialism, greed, and the veneer of happiness promoted via social media have been on the rise for a long time.

But somewhere deep down in all of us is the recognition that we are better than that. We are more than our desires and yearnings. We are also stardust and light. Or as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it, “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience”. What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

And so, even in the face of uncertainty, with a lingering sense of fatigue and disconnection from the seasonal surge of energy, there remains a quiet resilience—a belief that culture, community, and connection can guide us back to ourselves and to each other. Wine, in its essence, is more than a drink; it is a gesture, an offering, a shared story that bridges difference and speaks the language of civilisation.

If doux commerce seems like a distant ideal in today’s fractured world, it is perhaps all the more vital that we nurture it in small, everyday ways—with generosity, with curiosity, and with care. In raising a glass, we don’t just toast the future—we invite it in, hopefully and wholeheartedly.

Santé indeed!