The faltering economy has been hard on wine businesses. Althoughwinemakers hope things are beginning to turn around, the news is not good for France, the world's largest wine and spirits exporter. The Federation of French Wines and Spirits Exporters reported last week that exports of French wine have declined. Frankly, the headlines were a little underwhelming. Dire predications about the French wine crisis have been making news for at least five years. But it wasn't old news if you looked at the numbers. French exports fell 17 percent last year, while imports to the U.S. dropped by a staggering 23 percent. In Britain, a major consumer of French wine, sales fell by 20percent. Those are huge numbers, representing millions of euros.