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Presidential Tipple

French Vintner Creates 'Obama Cuvée'

While Germany opted for creating the dubious Obama Fingers, France has gone a more tasteful route. A female vintner, originally from Africa, has created an Obama wine -- and is donating all the profits to an NGO in Darfur.

The culinary world decided to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as United States president with some strange and possibly questionable products, including the Obama Fingers fried chicken snack, but now the rarefied world of wine is trying to get in on the act.

French winemaker Angela Bousquet-Keita, who hails originally from Guinea in Africa, has created the Obama cuvée (or vintage wine) to celebrate the election of the first African-American to the White House.

Bousquet-Keita, who believes she is the only black female winemaker in the entire country, described how she felt a "moment of ecstasy" when Obama won the election. "It was the advent of a world that I had always dreamed of for my children," she told the French daily Le Monde.

While she intends to charge a steep €150 ($198) for three bottles of the wine, Bousquet-Keita says all the profits will go to an NGO working in the Darfur region of Sudan. That gesture was inspired by the fact that she has employed refugees from Darfur to work in her vineyard for the past few years.

She hopes to be able to present the president with a bottle personally when he visits France in June. Made from three different grapes, she says the wine should improve with age: "It will be much better when served during his second term."

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