Tag Archives: Wine

‘England’s Dreaming’

02 Saturday Jul 2016

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The view through the, rain spattered, window of ‘Dunmoanin’  seems bleak and uninspiring as the hopes and dreams of my embittered and embattled nation are systematically dashed to pieces on the rocks below.  The VOR and I are holed up in this isolated cottage while the teens recover from exam fatigue and I wrestle with an article on what Brexit may mean for the wine industry.

 ‘Dunmoanin’ appears to be an extremely popular bolthole. A glance at the visitors book reveals such illustrious names as Osborne, Assange, John Darwin, Gordon Brown and Lucky Lucan and the VOR informs me that we must leave, in a timely manner, as another new guest is expected soon.

Gazing absentmindedly, and disconsolately, at the leaden sea-sky twin set – I believe grey’s in this season – a damp, drizzly sense of foreboding descends on tennis professionals, cricketers and political aspirants alike.

Cursing the gods of wifi whilst trying, and failing, to download the Dambusters, I begin with the economy which has plunged to a level not seen for thirty years when eerily apocryphal songs like Patti Labelle’s ‘On My Own’ and Howard Jones’s ‘No One Is To Blame’ graced the pop charts. Unfortunately it appears that we are on our own and someone’s definitely to blame.

The big winners in a weak pound war, are as ever, the major players. If you’re wealthy chances are it won’t affect you and all you have to do is sit tight, ride it out, check the markets and enjoy the show. To use that hackneyed and irritating old phrase ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.

For non EU producers it will be easier, and cheaper, to import without the hindrance of a potentially ever rising scale of EU duty. The strong USD and AUD means that our American, Antipodean and South African friends will be sharing the big brand love like there’s no tomorrow. So it will be business as usual on the shelves of your local supermarket, although finding a bottle of Yellowtail, Blossom Hill or The Devil’s Codpiece ,for less than a fiver, may be a thing of the glorious and rose tinted past.

Ironically, its the little people who will suffer. Not the leprechauns – although they may have their own problems – but the kind of small businesses the Brexiteers assured us would be having the time of their lives. It’s great to support British business if you know where its raw materials are coming from. The simple fact is that the small do not have the financial reserves to ride out the coming s**tstorm.

If you have a business whose products primarily come from the EU, then your suppliers may choose to sell entirely within the EU. And even if they do sell to you – chances are they currently don’t like you all that much – then you will be clobbered with ever increasing supply chain costs. This, in turn, limits the choices of Mr and Mrs John Bull.

Of course ,if you are a conspiracy theorist, this could all be a fiendish plot to sell more English wine. But remember, Boris and Michael were drinking beer, not flutes full of namby pamby Nyetimber.

So what if we turn our backs on the sunny sybaritic fruit of the vine and opt for an alternative. We Brits came late to wine remember, historically preferring the taste of beer, like the majority of our northern European neighbours, and spirits such as gin (extremely popular) and schnapps (not so). These are manly drinks and we deny our northernness, in this grey and unpleasant land, at our peril!

‘I’m ready’ the VOR says. ‘Have you sorted everything?’

‘Yes’ I say. ‘I’ve replenished what we’ve used and taken the liberty of stocking the larder with some good old fashioned British produce like Spam, Cadburys Smash, Fry’s Chocolate Cream, Jammy Dodgers, Bully Beef and a few cans of Old Molethrottler. I’ve also scattered some rubbish over the lawn and lit some candles as a reminder of the seventies and I finally managed to download a few ‘Carry On’ films and some episodes of ‘Yes Minister.’

‘You’d better hurry’ she shouts as a large red bus draws up outside.  ‘And stop saying ‘Take Back Control’ in that Dalek voice.

‘A Cautionary Tale’

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

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“If you were born to walk the ground,

 Remain there; do not fool around”     Belloc

For those of you who have just emerged from the self-imposed misery of a ‘Dry January’, it’s time to charge your glasses and raise a toast to the demise of the calendar’s dreariest month.

But before you rush to set those cash registers ringing, with your newly refurbished bank balances and bonuses. Let me offer up some words of warning for those of you considering buying from an independent wine merchant.

The wines they sell can be exciting:

A tad risky, I grant you. Independents tend to shy away from bland, boring, insipid wines. If you prefer neutral, alcoholic, fruit-juicy pap then stop reading now!

Their wines don’t all taste the same:

That’s right, they are often deliberately different. There will also be vintage variation (it’s hard to make a wine taste the same year in year out). This is due to weather – don’t worry I won’t bore you with detail – but expect the tannin, acid and alcohol ratios to change as the seasons do. They may be drier than the wines you are used to and may not have any residual sugar left in to make them ‘smooth’.

If this strikes fear into your heart, then insist that your wines be manufactured to a formula in vast industrial factories, on drip irrigated parched plains, to ensure homogeneity. If they refuse, you know where to go – and there’s a car park!

And what about those labels! You have point here. It’s confusing to call a wine after a region, property, vineyard, plot or person. Better to give it a legend like; The Bend in the Elbow, The Devil’s Punchbowl, Cougar’s Claw, or Dunny Ridge. And as for those pesky grape varieties! My advice is to stick to one of the tried and tested ‘big five’ or alternatively look for a brand with a small marsupial, lizard or fish on it.

They sometimes offer advice:

This is a bit unnerving, and particularly unwelcome if you if you don’t care that much about wine. Independents are cheeky buggers who may seek to steer you into unknown territory – where few civilised folk have drank before. If in doubt, try and get something akin to a cheap, ‘own label’ Merlot as it goes great with red meat. Besides who needs knowledgeable staff when it’s easier to intimidate untrained ones. And if they do offer you something to taste just pretend you have a cold and leave quickly.

They don’t do promos or bogofs’:

There are many reasons for this. They may not have enough c**p stockpiled to offer a promotion. The cost of the wines may also be transparent – reducing the need for them to go up and down like a politicians trousers. Of course if you really believe that you are getting ten pounds worth of quality for a fiver, best to stick with a supermarket. They will have a huge marketing machine that has psychologically profiled you to make you think you are actually in charge of the decision making process.

They’re a bit snobby:

Yes, kind of, but this is a common phenomenon found everywhere; from car showrooms, bike, skate and surf outlets, fashion retailers, art galleries, music and bookshops to purveyors of high end training shoes. It’s because some level of expertise is essential. If you find this hard to swallow look out for minimalist shelf talkers that say ‘Good with Fish’.

They’re a bit Green:

I know, I know – who bloody voted for them?  If you prefer your wines to have a gigantic carbon footprint or be shipped around the globe by the container load (in 24,000 litre polypropylene bladders) and bottled at the local dockyard you know you’re in the wrong place. Big bags equal big business. Some independents even buy their wines from Europe -usually from small artisan growers who farm organically or biodynamically. Bloody tree huggers!

I’m already a member of a wine club:

Ah yes, let me guess; the £50 voucher, the free corkscrew and set of real crystal glasses, plus something off your next order if you recommend a friend. Did you ever stop to taste those wines, or consider why no one comes to dinner anymore? I know they insist that they champion small producers and vineyards but did you ever stop to wonder why there’s such an inexhaustible supply.

My local wine merchant has closed down:

So sad. They have gone the way of grocers, bakers, chemists, newsagents, fishmongers, butchers and petrol stations. If your high street is filled with charity shops, coffee shops, chain stores and tumbleweeds, don’t moan – it may be partly your fault, but you can still get all those things from your local supermarket.

If you live in the back of beyond, you will be forced to go online. Be mindful though as some wine websites are owned by the kind of innovative small businesses you’re so keen to avoid.  Go for the big ones as they have money off as well as twenty three different kinds of Pinot Grigio.

I really couldn’t give a **** about wine:

Wine’s a pain actually. It’s more complex than lager and it doesn’t get you p****d as fast as vodka – unless it’s got bubbles.  Besides you’ve tried loads of wines and whilst some are nicer than others you don’t really care that much as long as it’s cheap and there’s lots of it. I fully sympathise with your plight and suggest you make sure you chill it right down to hide any faults – or more importantly taste!

‘The Hills are Alive’

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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‘It’s your turn’ the VOR says, disturbing my concentration, as we motor through the Alpine tunnels.
I love driving through ‘La Belle France’ its wide empty roads a refreshing change from the congestion, drizzle and perpetual greyness of my home on Kong’s Island.
Each leg of our journey is a revelation. The battlefields of the Marne and the Somme, the vineyards of Champagne, the Chickens of Bresse, the wildness of the Parc Naturel Régional de Haut Jura and the overdue promise of a Fondue Savoyarde.
The VOR dislikes video games and films and, rather like those parents who insist on wooden toys, prefers ‘I Spy’, ‘I Went to the Shop’ and ‘Who am I’ as (in-car) entertainment much to our children’s chagrin.

I settle on a mineral in ‘Animal, Mineral, Vegetable’ hoping to buy some extra daydreaming time. The kids, having held their breath in the tunnels of Paris, have decided that they might die of asphyxiation in the long Alpine versions perhaps thinking that this might be preferable to guessing my choice of Georgerobinsonite.
We arrive in a heatwave, the high temperatures sapping what little energy remains in my middle son’s teenage body forcing him to lie down (again) lest vertigo take hold.
I settle for an ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ moment with a glass of beer prior to a swim in the Lake – don’t try this at home – to rid myself of my drivers legs. The VOR meanwhile befriends our neighbours, an elderly couple from Paris, who are impressed by her treatment of their beloved language. It appears she has told them that I am a wine merchant and for the rest of our holiday the old man waves half empty bottles in my direction to indicate his tipple of the day.
I have decided to swim to the mile buoy and back twice a day. Although this slightly increases my chances of a premature death by drowning, it is the only way I can think of to burn off the Tartiflette and Gratin Dauphinoise.
There are some 17 crus worthy of the name Vin de Savoie and I intend to work my way through all of them during our stay. The best are Abymes, Apremont, Arbin, Ayze, Crepy, Seyssel, Montmelian, Saint-Jeoire-Prieuré and my own personal favourites Cruet and Chignin. These razor sharp, low alcohol, refreshingly restorative, often perlant whites are made from Jacquere, Altesse (or Rousette), Gringet, Chasselas (Roux and Vert) and Roussanne or Bergeron of Chignin. The reds (please don’t ‘mull’ them) are equally light and delicious and made from Gamay (Noir a Jus Blanc), Pinot Noir, Persan (almost non existent) and the native Mondeuse.
Our heatwave ends prematurely in a massive storm which obliterates the southern end of the Lake making it look like the entrance to the sea. I put down my Mondeuse, batten the hatches, splice the mainbrace and break out the Eau de Vie.
The inclement dawn weather inspires the VOR to venture further into the mountains. I question the wisdom of going higher but only inwardly as cowardice, or is it diplomacy, prevails.
‘I promised the boys a toboggan ride’ she ventures by way of an explanation.
We climb through the kind of narrow, winding, hairpins a cyclist full of EPO would struggle with. Past cows with bells and cute wooden chalets perched precariously on the sides of deep valleys.
‘Does the Tour de France ever come through here’ my youngest asks. 2009 and 2013, I ‘Rainmanly’ add, but my attention is taken by an extremely small man with curly hair stood next to a woodpile.
Before I have adequately thought things through I find myself on a chairlift ascending over heathered scrub and jagged rock into increasingly opaque cloud to the sound of a child weeping. Afraid of heights I know exactly how they must feel. This must look charming in the snow, I think, but again keep it to myself.
“Mont Blanc must be over there” the VOR says, gesticulating toward a thick bank of grey cloud, before the returning chairlift hits her in the calves leaving two peach size bruises which ruin her tan for the remainder of the holiday. I sit next to my cold and frightened youngest son vainly trying to keep him warm, and my camera dry, as a rivulet of rainwater runs down the back of my neck.
We change into dry clothing under the tailgate of the car before running to a charming, chalet-style restaurant for lunch and some much needed warmth. ‘This is nice’ and ‘Pull yourselves together’ says the VOR to our hypothermic offspring over the sausages and beer. Our fellow diners all appear to come from the north of England, presumably eager to find somewhere that resembles the Lake District in February, they do not seem to be cold at all.
Hours later, whilst driving back through the mountains with the heater on full blast, we pass the same man next to the woodpile and I imagine him in lederhosen made from Captain Von Trapp’s curtains.

‘Castles Made Of Sand’

30 Monday Mar 2015

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Ever get the feeling that what you say, write, do, or fundamentally believe, may not make an iota of difference? That the castle you have lovingly and meticulously constructed sits, rather infirmly, on some granular colloid hydrogel.

I sell wine for a living. Not just any old plonk mark you, but handcrafted wines, made by people who care deeply and passionately about their product, and spend my time telling others how great they are. That’s a damn sight harder than making the stuff, believe me.

The comedian Steven Wright once said that ‘If a man tells a joke in a forest, but nobody laughs, is it really a joke’.

Well that’s me. It’s my joke and my forest but most folk don’t know me, the location of my forest, if my forest actually exists, or if my joke was even funny in the first place.

So I am condemned to repeat myself, like History, Kevin Peterson, the diehard fans of Margaret Thatcher and Bonnie Prince Charlie, the elderly, or the revolutionary millenarians and mystical anarchists of the middle ages. Constantly, but rarely endearingly, reminding others what terrible mistakes they are making and the threateningly imminent proximity of the apocalypse.

Let’s reign my hobbyhorse closer to home. The VOR and I recently spent an evening with some old friends and I thought I would offer up the kind of wines they don’t normally drink as a bit of a treat. C was ecstatic, but her husband’s reaction surprised me. This erudite, creative, academic openly and frankly opined that he ‘didn’t care much about wine’ and that his only requirement was that it came in a large, and perpetually refilled, glass. The fact that he is not alone in his opinion only exacerbates my flying dutchman syndrome.

Like the late Curtis Mayfield, I just keep on keeping on about the cocacolarisation of wine. The homogenisation. The fauxthenticity. The dominance of the same five grape varieties (at the expense and detriment of others) branded and rebranded, packaged and repackaged, from giant polypropylene bag to dockside bottling plant. Don’t get me wrong, as an artist and illustrator, I’m a sucker for a groovy label but it’s important that what’s in the bottle isn’t s***e!

A mere five percent of the British public currently buys its wine from an independent merchant. The majority prefer the multiples. You know, the kind of stores that sell brands even Tiresias would struggle to tell apart. But as another old friend succinctly put it ‘At least they have free parking’.

‘And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually’ – Jimi Hendrix

‘Looking for Leiermann’

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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Auf dem Flusse

It’s early evening and darkness is already creeping over the creek as my dog and I traverse the muddy banks. Walking is a great way of organising thoughts and the realisation that I am putting off the seventeen wine tasting notes due before morning. Knowing that I have to write other things, in the elusive search for the non-standardised adjective, I steer my dog toward the village pub.

Das Wirtshaus

I know the pub well, and although recognised by staff (it’s their job after all) it has taken the best part of eleven years for any of the regulars to shout hello. Most, like me, do not hail from this part of the world and perhaps, like most city transplants, are waiting for someone they know to greet me to be sure I am alright. Sometimes I am bothered by this cool, quintessentially English, reserve, but tonight I don’t mind, preferring to sit quietly by the open fire with my dog, beer and thoughts.

Like Schubert’s wanderer I have undergone my own winter journey, and as Meyerhoffer so succinctly put it ‘life has lost its rosiness’. Although not syphilitic, like Schubert, endless visits to a psychiatric hospital, to see my eldest son, have worn a hole in my normally happy heart. Conversations are currently confined to healthcare professionals and not my dear boy who refuses to talk to me, perhaps blaming me for consenting to his admission. Heidegger said that ‘thinking is a lonely business’ and any stray, self-pitying, tears would spoil the nut-brown, hoppy, beer before me and it would be rude to disturb the reverie of my warm, dozing, dog.

Der Leiermann

The Moon is on its back in the star littered sky as I turn homeward, silhouetting the bare, rheumatically gnarled, fingers of the denuded trees that describe the direction of the prevailing wind over the cold damp hills.
I, like the wanderer, am questioning the conditions of my existence in this winter landscape, a sort of middle-aged Werther with a bit more sardonic wit and schadenfreude. Looking for Der Leiermann I surmise that, but for God’s grace, he could be any of us. A lonely, squalid, untrained, musician, cranking the hurdy gurdy with frozen fingers without the simple pleasure of a consoling ale. As I walk on I silently ask ‘will you play your hurdy gurdy to one of my songs’ but it’s Donavon’s I am given, not Schubert’s, and I count my blessings. Now on to those notes.

‘My favourite things are playing again and again but it’s by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane’   Elvis Costello

 

‘To decant or not to decant’

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

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That is the question……

When and why should we decant a wine? Instruction manuals can be a bit dry so bear with.

Decanting has three distinct advantages: the separation of the wine from its deposit or sediment, oxidation or aeration of the wine and changing the wines temperature.

Avoiding the sediment is obvious as polymerised tannins not only look disturbing in the glass but are deeply unpalatable to the poor soul unfortunate enough to swallow them.

Firstly remove the capsule (that’s the fancy metal – formerly lead bit – that covers the cork) entirely, so that you can see the wine as it comes up the neck. Then carefully uncork without agitating the bottle and disturbing the sediment. If it comes from a rack then stand it up for a few hours or ideally the day before.
Wipe the neck of the bottle (inside and out) with a clean cloth so you can clearly see the sediment as you pour. Tilt the bottle and the decanter at a slight angle over a candle (Dickensian but very Christmassy) so that you can observe the movement of the deposit, adjusting the angle as you pour – like bending, but not dramatically breaking, a twig.
Oxidation of the wine is important as it helps accentuate the smell or nose, but if this happens too abruptly, or for too long, it can ruin the wines subtlety and freshness.
Do not decant very old wine, just open and pour immediately to retain its fragile and fleeting charm.
Exposure to air can vary enormously with grape structure and type, so some knowledge of what you are serving, how old it is, and when you’re going to drink it is very important. Fortified wines like Port and Madeira have already undergone substantial oxidation in cask so can sit in a decanter for hours. Even young wines respond to aeration, and while they may not throw a sediment – due to modern fining and filtration techniques – they benefit greatly from a mellowing of often fierce aromas and aggressive tannins.
Decanting also helps the wine to ‘naturally’ come up to the temperature of the room in which it is to be served. Remember the decanter should also be the same temperature as the room. A young wine served from a bottle takes longer to come to room temperature than a decanted wine taking, on average, about three hours to rise from 11 to 18 degrees centigrade in a room of around 22.
A sommelier will do this for you in a restaurant, but remember they are much more flash than they used to be and insist on sampling some of your precious vino!

Little Big Wine

14 Sunday Sep 2014

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The question went something like this. ‘Would you [as a wine snob] consider writing a piece on Beaujolais Nouveau for our magazine’? I said yes, partly following P.T. Barnum’s lead on publicity, but mainly because I actually rather like vins de primeur. They hark back to simpler, halcyon days before big, blowsy, brands bestrode the world like Tyrannosaurs, ravenously gobbling up every little, low alcohol, wine in their voracious path.

Back then, traditional wine merchants would eagerly, if somewhat self-consciously, swap their pinstripes and food stained ties for breezy, Chanelesque, Breton shirts and make their jaunty be- bereted way back and forth across the English channel – on a range of eccentric and dangerous transports – vying to be the first the bring back the, barely fermented, first wines of the harvest – before the stroke of midnight morphed them into pumpkins on the third Thursday of November. They would then assemble riotously at the nearest ‘stand up and shout’ for the start of a gloriously bibulous weekend, in what was described by Le Figaro, as ”The greatest marketing stroke since the end of World War Two”.

Admittedly great for cash flow, this poor mans en primeur allows producers to release their vin ordinaire on the open market, mere weeks after fermentation ends – providing some much needed brass in pocket to lavish on their more serious vinous offspring. But what else accounts for their popularity – particularly in the U.S where wine consumption per capita is less than 30%.

Well, to begin with, it’s the nearest a red wine can get to a white, and yes there’s some nerdiness involved, but it’s the kind of chemistry our distant ancestors with their earthenware pots would have been familiar. All Beaujolais wines are made entirely from one single grape variety, the Gamay Noir a Jus Blanc and display a remarkable bugle clear, youthful, zingy freshness, from Villages level through to the nine Crus. The phenolics are low and the astringent tannins or extract normally associated with red wines are absent. Acidity is naturally high, making it refreshing, and alcohol levels in the best examples are low at around 11- 12% abv – meaning you can drink a lot of it!

The bunches are hand harvested, to keep them intact, then fermented whole to preserve the purity and freshness of the fruit. The lower berries in the vat are split by the increased weight of the new bunches at the top, and a unique intracellular fermentation takes place, where the compote of fruit consumes its own grape sugars releasing CO2 which in turn attacks the sugars in the remaining juice initiating the alcoholic fermentation. Accetification at the top of the vat is avoided as the remaining bunches collapse into the bubbling must. The wine is ‘run off’, after three days, in two parts. The ‘free run’ juice, which contains little or no residual sugars, and the must still with some whole berries intact. Rapid fermentation of the whole then takes place naturally, due to high ph and amino acids, then the wine is racked, fined, filtered, bottled and dispatched to the cafes of Paris and Lyon where they are greeted as eagerly as a family birth.

So why do I like simple vins de bouche? Well its part nostalgia and part practicality. These light purple, high acid, low tannin, medium weight elixirs, reeking of strawberry jam and nail polish, served in a ludicrously small glass or a pichet remind me of carefree, impoverished, art student days trawling the galleries and bar tabacs of Paris and the South of France.  The less romantic reason is that they are a great autumnal lunchtime drink, possessing a straightforward glugability, unworthy of cerebral comment, to slake the generational thirsts of farm workers and artisans alike in a manner to make Ugolin and Papet proud.

Temperature Control

11 Thursday Sep 2014

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When I select wines for buying, I often taste blind, where possible, and always at room temperature – especially the whites. This allows the aromas present in the wine to come to the fore (often pre swirl) and an accurate assessment of their true quality to be made, as well as any obvious, or less obvious, examples of physicochemical spoilage such as; oxidation, chemical or enzymatic reduction, microbial spoilage or precipitation by crystallisation or polymerisation.

I taste alone most of the time, finding this suits my rather misanthropic temperament, and as most of my selections are based on personal opinion it helps eliminate distractions making it easier to concentrate on the wine in the glass.

At the end of the week we taste as a team, this is a great way to round out the week, engender that Friday feeling and swap opinions and perceptions. On a monthly basis I meet with a control group, of like and unlike minded palates, to broaden out and level the tasting field and receive some invaluable market research into the bargain.

This has been the norm for the past three years, we taste all the wines as a double blind, and agree to disagree on a regular basis. One thing we always agree on however, is the correct or optimum temperature at which the tasting samples should be served. Sommeliers and Restaurateurs are aware of this, as a matter of course, but how many members of the wine buying public are so well informed.

I’ll walk you through it, excuse the dryness wine nerds, but it will help enormously:

Dry, white, wines should be served between 8 and 14°C, this spectrum covers most eventualities such as time of year, season and temperature of surroundings. The lower end of the scale is better for simple, primary-fruited wines such as Sauvignon Blanc, while the higher end is for more robust, complex, secondary-fruited wines such as White Burgundies.

Champagnes should be drunk at around 8 or 9°C, cold but not too cold, vintage wines can take 10°C.

Rose´s and Clairetes between 8 and 12°C, higher end for serious cru classe rose’ with the lower price bracket benefiting from pre chilled glasses prior to pouring and, in extemis, even accepting an ice cube or two on a hot summer’s day.

Sweet, white, wines should be served between 6 and 10°C depending on age, the older the wine the higher the temp. Sweet reds at between 10 and 15°C – tannins depending.

Fruity, juicy, thirst-quenching reds with simple aromatics, such as Beaujolais can be served around 11 to 14°C, with the lower end reserved for vin de primeur (Beaujolais Nouveau) and the higher end for the Crus. You can even go cooler for Nouveau and room temp for Moulin a Vent.

Rhone wines range from as low as 13°C for basic CDR Villages rising to around 18 or even 19°C for the serious kit such as Northern Rhone Syrah and Southern Rhone Grenache. A good rule of thumb here is that the bigger the structure of the wine (tannins and extract) and the more complex the vinification and maturation methods, the higher the serving temperature – so you can go up to around 19 or 20°C for red Bordeaux.

Red Burgundies should be served between 14 and 17°C dependant on the style and weight of the wines.

What about Italian, Spanish and Portuguese reds? I hear you cry. Well you should have learned a thing or two by now, the higher the tannin the higher the serving temperature should be.

And finally. If you are serving cheap, white wines, to people who get through a lot of volume but don’t care about the taste, then chill the bejaysus out of it so as to mask any neutrality, lack of structure and faults therein.

‘Fear of Flavour and the Birth of the Bland’

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

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Bybo Directors Tim Harms and Jules Lewis 1 (3)

 

Flowery, soft, supple, juicy, zesty, smooth, voluptuous, tasty, spicy – or god forbid – easy drinking.  What do such terms really tell you? Are they descriptive, or merely a convenient, lazy, shorthand dashed off by the uninspired to promote a dull product.

I recently saw a tasting note where a Spanish rose’ was described as mineraly, not once, but twice in the same sentence! This currently fashionable, and overused term, is not only bandied about inaccurately (confusingly used to denote/ describe acidity rather than the actual mineral content of a wine) but is wholly inappropriate for a warm climate rose’ – two mineraly then?

So, should the descriptive language surrounding wine be figurative or literal? A recent broadsheet article stated that ‘ordinary people enjoying a bottle of wine at the end of the day couldn’t give a monkey’s about the story behind it or wine education’. So perhaps we have the descriptors we deserve, ‘tales told by idiots signifying nothing’,  accurately reflecting our preference for bland, neutral, insipid whites and blackberry juiced, alcoholic, over-sugared, cloying reds.

The Utilitarians, Mill and Bentham, thought that the greatest happiness of the greatest number would inevitably lead to the death of opera and the continuation of bear baiting, they thought that there should be moral and aesthetic arbiters for good taste.

‘The best way to give the public what it wants is to reject the express policy of giving the public what it wants’.

John Reith, essentially a Victorian, argued that high culture only needed to be made available for most people to embrace it. His position, via the BBC, was to educate inform and entertain, but if it’s a mammoth audience or market you covert then perhaps education is not the best bet.

There used to be a progression in the world of drinking. The bibulous were inevitably led by some elder, a Yoda or Master Oogway to take the straightforward and natural journey from sweet, fruit-flavoured drinks to something drier and more sophisticated. Occasionally they were led down dark and winding paths to encounter and appreciate the complexities of sherry, port and fine old sweeties. This rite of passage began with a sneaky shandy or cider in ones’ ‘yoof’, then bitters, wines and eventually spirits and brown spirits.

In recent years, let’s say the last 40, the big brewers realised that, if something is insipid, has no real virtue, or taste, given the right conditions, people will consume lots of it. I will spare you the brand names and grape varieties but you know where I’m going with this.

People became afraid of flavour ‘I know what I like and am sticking to it’ unadventurous and scared to move on. Those that did, were encouraged to eschew complexity for simple, primary fruit flavours, promoted by egalitarian pundits who simplified wine to the level of fruit juice – reducing and homogenizing descriptors to papaya, kiwi fruit, and melon and at its lowest ebb ‘cats pee on a gooseberry bush’!

Wine is now the drink of choice for many, but is that because, in its big branded form, it is easier to understand than say beer or spirits? And has it become simpler in structure and flavour, yet higher in alcohol, to make it sell more.

Does this signify a fear of drinking or a fear of flavour? The desire to drink (and drink lots) is apparent, but drink without work, drunkenness without fuss, no journey, no grown up flavours, no progression – pass the raspberry cidre.

 

 

 

 

 

‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore’

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Does your life occasionally echo that Ink Spots refrain? The VOR and I have become used to missing that Saturday dance and get disproportionately excited about any invitation out. The downside to such unbridled and child unencumbered joy is that we often arrive too early, and are either obliged to help cook, set up, or as so often happens, find ourselves at the mercy of the uncrowded room, fellow early birds and elephants therein.

The VOR, being a woman, is immediately at an advantage with openers such as ‘I love your hair, shoes, dress’ or the marvellously complementary ‘You look great, have you lost weight’? forever endearing her to her conversational companions.

I, on the other hand, am the kind of man who knows little of car engines, the myriad charms of accountancy, the stock market, house prices, football or the crippling cost of school fees and am often caught with my proverbial pants down.

Low rather than high powered, I smile benignly, nod appreciatively and endeavour to achieve the general state of alcohol induced anaesthesia required to survive most ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ male exchanges – eternally aware of the all seeing eye of the VOR checking that I do not say anything rude or inappropriate.

If someone is aware that I am involved in wine, openers such as ‘I hate Italian wine’ (general) or ‘Don’t you just loath Sauvignon Blanc’ (particular) are not uncommon. To my knowledge I have never said ‘Isn’t the law boring’ or ‘Invasive surgery – who needs it’? Although a comment about Ugg boots being great for concealing fat ankles continues to haunt me.

Too near a generously overstocked bar I was moving swiftly from the Ink Spots through Mose Allison to Dr John, swearing silently not to deliver any comments about puffy talocrural regions, when my solitary reverie was interrupted by ‘X’.

‘God, pass me some of that I’ve had one helluva day’ – not indicating whether it was bad or good – I relinquished my grip on the bottle of neutral and acidic fizz.

Wearing that most versatile and indestructible modern business combo of grey suit and open necked blue shirt, he fixed me with his gaze, shook my hand firmly, then held it a little too long for comfort.

‘X’ he said, giving me his single syllable name. ‘Julian’ I replied, secretly envious of his unshakeable confidence whilst bemoaning my less dynamic three syllabled moniker.

‘Just smashed our monthly sales targets’. I think I said ‘Cool’ which is a word I probably shouldn’t use at my age, but at least I was engaging in the dance.

‘Investment in staff training has really paid off and now that our sales team have product knowledge we expect significant month on month growth’.

‘What do you sell’? I asked. ‘Wine’ he replied. ‘Didn’t they already have previous knowledge’? I countered, concealing my amazement as I recharged his glass.

‘Well, it’s desirable but not entirely essential, basically it’s just rapid FMCG turnover, same as any commodity, it’s about volume, traffic and money, the key is to close the deal’.

Warming to his theme he informed me that DTH (direct to home) sales – my acronyms were improving with every sentence – were now worth about £800 million which roughly translated to around 13% of the total market share,

‘That’s around 10 million consumer’s regularly buying wine online. The big high street retailers collar 28%, while the other well-known suppliers, such as us, net around 25% of all online sales’.

‘So what’s your secret’.

‘Exclusive products, large margins, good customer service and unbeatable opening offers’ he replied.

Familiar with his system, but conscious of my legal team of one, I said that if I were a consumer I would have reservations over ‘real’ value for money – or should I say VFM – and felt that impossibly cheap introductory offers, implied that the wines sold were more competitively priced than other retailers but that after the initial sale they reverted to a higher price.

‘Good point, you obviously know your stuff, but the fact is most of our customers are pretty lazy, they prefer us to choose for them then automatically re order’.

‘And if they don’t’?

‘Then our sales teams cold call them and entice them back with more special offers or bigger discounts to sweeten the deal’.

‘But what about the quality of the wine’?

‘For the vast majority it makes no difference, but we have higher level products to cater for those who think they know what they’re doing’.

‘Are your customers not concerned that by buying exclusives they’re unable to compare prices with other retailers so have no idea of their real worth’?

‘We don’t just do exclusives, our higher range products are traceable but it’s all about quick turnover old boy’ he said. ‘Our customers are wine drinkers not wine lovers, and everyone’s a sucker for a free gift’.

‘Perhaps I’m in the wrong business’.

He was about to belatedly ask me what I did, when the VOR (Spidey senses tingling) took my arm, and with perfect timing, swept me away saying

‘Darling there’s someone you really must meet’!