Yes, but your confusing travel with wine. Wine is a luxury item. What concern of the governments is it to prop up wine producers?
Boeing is the biggest US airframe producer. It has the potential to affect the entire economy not to mention national security.
Should we subsidize bourbon and twinkies - there popular also
Wine is a massive economic engine for parts of Europe.
At the risk of gross oversimplification here, but allowing the vineyards to go out of business would result in a shortage of wine in the near future with corresponding increase in prices due to the shortage, and with wine production being a long lead time activity w/ significant barriers to the market (once production is abandoned or even idled), prices would continue to rise for a long time until production caught up with demand. Also, in the meantime, what becomes of abandoned vineyards?? Permanent loss of production capacity could support permanently higher prices and these leaders have to get elected. Then there are the jobs at the vineyards, the ag businesses supporting them, the transportation, tourism, etc., remembering that wine is also a massive export product. With the vineyards mostly being in rural (and beautiful) parts of the countries, the impact to the local economies would likely be devastating.
As others noted we do it also both directly and indirectly (through govt purchases) w/ milk probably being the best example, autos.
This isn't really socialism, that would be the State taking or at least controlling the means of production...protectionism maybe??
Flash back 40 years ago, me to my Macroeconomics Professor: "...and sometime in the new century, I'll be on a forum...what's a forum???"
Yeah, I'm having some trouble focusing in the office this afternoon.
