Sour grapes in Bordeaux?

In any competition, there are the winners on the podium and the losers skulking in the shadows, muttering darkly about how they were robbed of a prize they believe was their due. In Bordeaux last week, most of the buzz was inevitably about the dozen-and-a-half chateaux that had just been beatified by Pope Robert I (or given 100 points, in wine-speak), and how much demand there was or wasn't for these wines. And about the "fairness" of the marks.

What, at least one sub-100-pointer wanted to know, if the 2009 sample Pope Robert tasted was not actually typical of the chateau's production in that year? What if a special bottle had been prepared for him to taste? I'm not sure whether the person making this suggestion (their wine had lost a few points between Parker samplings by the way) was saying that a wine that got a deserved 95-points in barrel had been dishonestly doctored to be given an extra five, or whether it was perhaps not even a genuine 95-pointer in the first place. After all, if you believe that your competitors are responsible for dirty tricks, there's no limit to the misbehaviour you might imagine them coming up with.

And if producers tinkered with 2009 wine that had every possibility of being naturally pretty good, what might they do to next month's barrel samples of a 2011 vintage in which few have any real confidence?

Of course people like me are not really supposed to pass on this kind of gossip, but if it comes from highly-experienced people at the heart of the region's wine trade, I see no reason not to do so. The chateaux and negociants of Bordeaux have all colluded in giving insane levels of influence to the occasional encounters of one liquid and one human palate. Some Bordelais - and others - have sometimes benefitted hugely from some of these encounters, Some have not. On the occasions when the referee rules in their favour, they leave the pitch with a smile. When they don't, they shout "foul". Simple as that.

Of course other industries seem to make do quite well without a referee or Pope...

Natural selection

Wine is a natural product... So, obviously there's no reason for anyone to need to print a list of ingredients on a label; after all, what are you going to put there apart from grapes and SO2. Then you take a look at contents such Diammonium phosphate (yeast nutrient), Bentonite and Pectinolytic Enzymes (fining agents), whose names appear on bottles of own-label wine at the Co-op in the UK, and you seem to have another very good reason not to want to opt for disclosure. Do we really want to scare the consumers? Are they capable of handling this information? Shouldn't we leave them in their ignorant bliss?

Until recently, the only pressure for ingredient listing has come from outside the industry. Indeed in the UK, the Co-op claims that to do so is actually illegal; after 13 years, this is still the only chain to have taken this step. But now there's a robin in the nest; a group of - some would say eccentric - winemakers are beginning to create a situation in which these listings may become a necessity.

Producers of natural wines and their keen fans murmour darkly about the potions to which "industrial" winemakers (a term that sometimes seems to cover anyone who even adds sulphor to their vats) routinely resort. This pressure is unlikely to go away, especially as the Naturalistas slouch slowly towards legally defining sets of standards and practices. Obviously no one is going to suggest that everybody should go natural, but the existence of these purists inevitably raises questions about what others are doing. Observers like Fiona Beckett are writing compelling pieces in which winemakers such as Jason Lett of Eyrie Vineyards in Oregon dish the dirt on "Why some reds are so soft and syrupy"

There's a parallel here with what is happening in countries like South Africa and Argentina. If you're not certified as a Fairtrade winery, you'd better demonstrate that you treat your employees properly. I know that there's not much space on a back label (and that European producers often prefer to not even to have one of these) but that's also true of a yoghurt pot and a chocolate bar, and producers of those products seem to manage.

Just as they also manage to achieve some level of accuracy in what they print there. Could somebody, somewhere please tell me why New World wines think that it is legitimate to allow themselves 1-1.5% leeway in their alcohol content? A wine labeled "12.5% alc. by vol." can, in reality, actually contain between 11.0%-14.0%. Above 14%, the margin drops to 1%, so a Californian Zinfandel labeled "15.4% alc. by vol." might actually contain anything between 14.5%-16.5%.

We are so Amateur! - Postscript to London Intl Wine Fair Post

I'm fascinated to see that among the most frequent comments (on Twitter, Facebook and in the replies in this blog) about the London Intl Wine Fair and Prowein are complaints about Excel being an inconvenient place to get to and about the cost of WiFi and unavailability of food in Dusseldorf.

Get real! Excel is a successful exhibition venue; the LIWF is one of its smaller events. Thousands of caterers make their way there to look at cookers and plates at the Hotelympia fare; travel agents and operators from across the country pack out the Travel Market. What's so bloody precious about wine people that we can't handle the DLR?

If the wine trade was booming in the UK, the show wouldn't even be at Excel; it would be at the NEC in Birmingham, another inconvenient venue that has little difficulty selling its space to trade fairs.

As for the the WiFi complaint. Yes, it's annoying to have to pay €40 to be able to tweet or check one's email, but on a scale of 1-10, I'd place it very near the bottom. If that's all the Germans have to worry about, I don't think they'll be losing any sleep.

Let this be a warning!

The anti alcohol lobby still has a few (old) tricks up its sleeve...

Last chance to save the London Wine Fair

No-one who wandered the halls at this week's Prowein fair and remembers last year's London International Wine Fair (LIWF) can have failed to have noticed the difference between these two events. For anyone who has been to neither, just imagine the contrast between New York and Norwich or Lille and you will have a pretty fair idea. Prowein is huge and growing huger (there's a long waiting list and two more halls will open next year), while London is parochial and shrinking. PLB, one of the UK's biggest wholesalers has lived up to its threat and dropped out and today brings news that New Zealand will not have a national stand.

I have to declare a pair of interests. I chair the LIWF Conference and expect it to be a great event and I am also one of the presenters at the Meininger's International Conference that immediately precedes Prowein. As a publisher, Meininger is also involved with the Dusseldorf event, but I personally have an emotional relationship with the one in the UK. I remember when it consisted of a few tables in a room above a department store on a London High Street.

But the UK wine trade has changed and the LIWF no longer has a reason to exist in its traditional and current form. Stand space is expensive, there are too few key buyers and nobody enjoys the journey to Docklands. The possibility of meeting lots of sommeliers and owners of independent retailers is always welcome, obviously, but the amount of wine any of these can buy is limited and the cost per stand visitor is high. (As one former exhibitor said "I could give each of the useful people I see a Rolex and still be in pocket!").

The organisers talk about introducing changes, but nothing leads me to believe that these will be radical, and any suggestion of accommodating those dirty, ignorant, annoying human beings known as consumers seems to be firmly excluded from the agenda.

The writing is not just on the wall, it's in glaring neon. The buyers from the major UK retail chains - and a fair few smaller companies were all in Dusseldorf (many for the first time) waxing lyrical about the appeal of the show and its efficiency. Several UK distributors had stands...

If the LIWF organisers and the committee that advises them are ready for some genuinely lateral thinking, their event - or a version of it - could survive. If not, someone may soon be reading the LIWF last rites.

Parker still packing a punch

We all tend to look for confirmation of beliefs we cherish. Keen fans of organic food leap upon every scrap of anecdotal evidence of the growth in organic grocery sales, even if the hard data reveals that the number of people buying green foods and drinks is actually dropping.

The same applies to the members of the wine world who dislike the power that is wielded by Robert Parker and wish that it would simply go away. Parker points are losing their influence, they declare, on the basis of a couple of conversations, usually with people who share their views.There may be some truth in this, but far less than the anti-Parkers would like to imagine. Since the guru published his latest review of the 2009 Bordeaux, Liv-Ex reports that prices of some highly rated chateaux' wines have risen by 20%, and over 60% of recent trading has been totally focused on that vintage. Jean-Charles Boisset reports similar excitement over his Burgundies following their assessment by the Parker team. Anti-Parkers like to claim that the Chinese are not interested in his marks; people actually selling wine in China tend to disagree.

In simple terms, it may be true that high Parker points are a little less effective in helping to sell middle-of-the-road wines than they were, and that the third successive highly rated vintage is harder to sell than its predecessors but there is no denying that any wine with a score in the 90s is easier to move than its less exalted peers.

But... even if the anti-Parkers got their wish, what precisely do they expect to replace those points? A Utopia in which consumers intelligently make up their own minds? Or follow the advice of a critic with whom they - the anti-Parkers - feel more in tune? Dream on my friends - and remember the many many instances of nations that have overthrown their ruler, only to have him replaced by someone unimaginably less congenial.

Not needed on voyage: the apparent dispensability of Portuguese wine

No-one is indispensable, as Andre Villas-Boas the manager of Chelsea football team discovered this week, after a series of lost games led to his dismissal by the team's owner, Roman Abramovich. Underperforming wine regions and indeed entire countries can suffer a similar fate, and coincidentally, Portugal is facing a similar removal from the scene - or at least from the shelves of Majestic, the UK's leading specialist wine retailer.

Portuguese wines, though gloriously popular with British critics and sommeliers, have failed to catch the public imagination. Like other generic organisations, ViniPortugal tried to remedy this by giving retailers money to fund promotional campaigns, but a recent change in policy has led it to withdraw this funding in order to use the cash elsewhere. Majestic, has reacted rather interestingly by writing to the suppliers of its Portuguese wines requesting that they provide compensation for its loss. Failure to do so, it was apparently suggested, might lead to the delisting of the entire category.

Not surprisingly, the Portuguese producers at Prowein who heard about this move felt highly affronted. How dare Majestic treat us like this? they asked, forgetting that retailers are entirely free to decide what they do and do not want to sell. Few appreciated my blunt analysis: if Portugal is not on Majestic's must-stock list, there's no-one to blame except the Portuguese winemakers. If the marketing contribution provides such a large reason for the chain to list these wines, they clearly aren't doing something right. In simple terms, if customers were coming into the stores in sufficient numbers asking to buy Portuguese wines, there is no way that Majestic would dream of removing the bottles from its stores.

In the same week that I heard this story, the Bordeaux-based winemaker, Francois Lurton, announced that he was going to give up his share in a Portuguese wine venture, citing poor sales as his reason. These two stories are not unconnected. I happen to share the sommeliers' and critics enthusiasm for Portugal's best wines, but I also understand the need for effective branding, marketing and distribution - three grubby words whose importance is sadly underappreciated by the Portuguese producers and their fans.

Looking for a free lunch?

How big was your Google bill this month? Have you paid Facebook yet? Cutting down on your Youtube usage to save money?

Ok, I apologise for my customary facetiousness but, unless you've paid for advertising or, like me, signed up for extra space on the gmail server to store gazillions of old emails (because I'm crap at throwing stuff away), I'm pretty sure that you've never actually given any of these services any cash. On the other hand, like almost everybody else, you've almost certainly taken ample advantage of what they have to offer. And quite possibly not paused to ponder where the money comes from to allow us to upload our holiday videos on Youtube.

Now for anyone who no longer believes in Father Christmas, the tooth fairy and a free lunch service, it oughtn't to be too surprising that the companies behind these services are exploring every possible way to make them profitable. And not very surprising either, given the way that we use the services, that these profitable solutions include exploiting the information we consciously or unconsciously give them.

There's little question that both Facebook and Google have been less than forthright in the way they've changed their rules, and Google may end up paying a hefty European fine for the way in which it has behaved. But the fact remains, these companies are offering us free stuff; somewhere there has to be a pay-off. It's up to us to decide whether the two sides of the equation balance up.

The complaints I'm hearing about Google and Facebook remind me, incidentally, of the whinges I often encounter from readers of glossy magazines about the number of advertisements they have to wade through. Do these readers really imagine that the few pounds or dollars they hand over for a copy really pays for all the journalism, photography, editing and printing? If so, maybe the steady growth in free publishing and the high cost of advertising-lite eforts like World of Fine Wine should set them straight.

Google and Facebook may now be worth more than many a small nation and they may have become as big a part of many of our lives as our morning cup of coffee, but we are not their subjects; none of us carries a Google passport. Yet. Stated simply, if you don't like the way your free lunch is served, take your custom to another soup kitchen.

We don't need no education!

At the risk of sounding presumputous, I believe that I may have the answer to a long list of the problems that assail the world today, from Islamic extremism to teenage pregnancy, smoking, gun crime, gang warfare, drug and alcohol abuse... You name the issue and my solution stands a sporting chance of solving it. All we need to do in any of these cases is... to sprinkle it with a little pixie dust.

Ok, so I was being facetious. I shouldn't have said pixie dust. What I ought to have said was "education". There, now that makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? And unlike pixie dust, education really is the perfect word to utter when confronted with an intractable social issue. The second best thing about proposing education as a solution to the woes of the world is that almost no-one is going to disagree with you. Even professional contrarians like me are forced to nod sagely and acknowledge that yes, if everyone has been educated in the appropriate way, most of them will probably behave rather better. But that, as I say is only the second best thing. By far the best thing is that saying "education" is gloriously cheap in terms of money and effort. After all, much of the responsibility of actually cramming new ideas into possibly unwilling heads is always shunted along to someone else.

Which leaves the people who make and sell wine to go on making and selling wine, and the people who write about it to go on sharing their thoughts with the minority of the population that has already taken the trouble to listen to them. Education, for the wine industry, generally consists of holding tastings - for relatively small numbers of interested people - writing books and articles - generally for the same kind of interested readers - and trying - usually unsuccessfully - to get some mention of wine onto television or radio where it might hit a broader audience. Beyond this, there are efforts by industry-funded groups like Drinkaware in the UK to help parents and schools spread the word of moderation amongst the impressionable young. Though not, obviously, among their less impressionable parents, an apparently growing number of whom are doing irreversible damage to their their livers by drinking a bottle or so of wine every evening. (Some of you may have tripped over those words "apparently growing", but it's an inconvenient truth that alcohol-related liver disease has grown over fourfold in recent years in the UK, while the number of sufferers from all other major conditions is falling.)

Drinkaware does its best, producing packs that help schools and parents talk to children about alcohol and handing out grants to theatre companies to mount performances that encourage moderation. But even if/when Drinkaware gets the £5m annual budget it is projecting, this is a drop in the ocean when it comes to educating the public - especially when set against the drinks industry's £600-800m marketing budget. Now, it might not seem unreasonable to imagine that responsible adults who take the trouble to access the Drinkaware website to downoads that material might not be the ones in greatest need of help. But one might be wrong. While writing this, I have just talked to a French friend who lives in the UK and has worked in the wine industry. Last weekend she collected her 16 year old daughter from a party at which she and her friends were almost all too drunk to stand. Most, as she graphically described it, were lying in their own vomit.

These well brought up, middle class kids had all been "educated" by responsible parents about how to handle alcohol sensibly. Unfortunately, the vodka apparently trumped the education. But at least, when they sober up, my friend's daughter and her privately educated friends can read, write, divide and multiply reasonably proficiently. Unlike a frightening number of the young people who are currently on the job market. According to a 2011 survey of 500 of its members by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) over a third fail to meet basic mathematical skills and a terrifying 42% have inadequate literacy. These, don't forget, are young people who have recently emerged from being involuntarily educated on a daily basis.

When I raised the issue of wine-drinking middle class alcoholics last week and suggested that it might be a good idea for pubs to stop selling wine by the third-of-a-bottle, several people disagreed, saying that it was a "society" problem that needed a healthy dose of the "E" word. When I challenged one of these would-be educationalists to describe precisely how he would go about "educating" middle-aged, middle class men and women, he said that wasn't his job; he'd made a positive proposal. It was up to others to come up with ways to make it work.

Obviously, for reasons I've already explained, I'm not saying that education isn't a good idea; I'm merely pointing out that it's far, far easier to say than to implement with any success. And until someone proves that they really are using it as a remedy rather than a paliative, I think I'll go on making concrete suggestions for ways that the wine industry might try to address the problem rather than wait for the government to do so. Inconveniently, for people like me who don't like government regulation, there is some evidence that it can be rather more effective than the alternatives. In 2007, despite all the efforts of a broad array of well-meaning people (and quite a lot of education), 24% of under-18-year olds in the UK still opted to smoke. In that year, the government raised the legal age at which tobacco can be bought from 16 to 18. In 2010, according to a study by University College London, the proportion of young smokers had fallen to 17%. But then, I'm sure there are plenty of people who'll deny the existence of a connection between the two.

On reflection, I was wrong to pick on pixie dust as my solution to problems like alcohol abuse. Actually, cake would be a far better choice. I can see Marie Antoinette looking out at the revolting populace and uttering the words "let them be educated!"

Stop supersizing wine

"What can I do? It's up to society to deal with alcohol abuse. It's not the responsibility of the wine industry..." That was the response (through social media) of many wine professionals to my post on the Alastair Campbell "Britain's hidden alcoholics" programme. I did my best to point out that saying "If people use my product irresponsibly, it's not my concern" is precisely the argument put forward by gun manufacturers: hundreds of millions of US gun owners do themselves and others no harm with their weapons. But that hasn't stopped governments in most of the rest of the world from effectively preventing gun manufacturers from selling their wares. If industries don't self-regulate, they tend to find others will do the job for them. Often in ways they find distasteful.

Which brings me to a campaign I've just kicked off to encourage a bit of self regulation in the UK and Australia - against the 250ml serving in bars and pubs. The idea of putting a third of a bottle of wine into a glass is a recent notion, with no tradition in the UK or elsewhere. When it's part of a round-buying culture, unlike the sale of bottles or carafes, it actually encourages excessive drinking . How many people drinking their big glass of red or white know that they're actually consuming 50% more alcohol than their beer-drinking companion? (Which is ironic when one considers that the beer drinker is more likely to be male and the wine drinker female).

This is most emphatically not a spoilsport, "wowser" (to use the Australian expression), anti-alcohol move. When I'm in a bar or pub, I usually buy a bottle or carafe and a few glasses and may well end up drinking much more than the two or three units my doctor would advise. But I'm not putting any pressure on anyone else to drink at my speed. Conversely I'm not pressured to drink at theirs.

So, I've set up a Facebook group called stop.supersizing.wine If you agree that there is nothing very civilised about selling wine by the bucket, please join it and, more usefully still, spread the word. My plan is to get a lot of names, including some influential ones, on board and shame the on trade into voluntarily dropping the glasses - before the government forces them to do so.

Japanese miniatures

Water colours or oils? Chamber music or orchestral? Those were the kinds of questions that sprang to mind as I tasted my way through a series of Japan’s best Koshus. For anyone unfamiliar with this Japanese grape (a description that I’d imagine applies to 99.9999% of wine consumers), it is a pink skinned vinifera grown in Yamanashi, a region close to Mount Fuji. It is Japan’s most widely grown wine variety but with less than 500 ha of vineyards, it represents a smaller-than-homeopathic drop in the global bucket. One might imagine that Japan’s 150m population would be able to consume it all over not very many meals, but the producers are evidently keen to export and have taken on a highly respected Master of Wine called Lynne Sherriff to help them develop sales in Europe.

Three years into this process, sales are still tiny (one sommelier says he hand-sold 10 bottles last year) but Ms Sherriff has undeniably created something of a Koshu buzz among the great and good. Last week, Jancis Robinson, Steven Spurrier, Anthony Rose and the (surprisingly humorous) Japanese ambassador) were among the group at Hibiscus restaurant to sample 13 wines with a set of dishes.

So back to those water colours. Koshu is either delightfully subtle or flavour-challenged, depending on your point of view and taste. At its best, it has a very floral (rose, honeysuckle and violet) nose (arguably its best point) and a creamy flavour that reminds me of a light, apple puree and egg-white pudding my mother used to make called apple snow. Some also have notes of quince and sweet spice, but none is flavour-packed. An oaked version from Suntory illustrated the problem with this grape; to my mind it looked like a fragile beauty caked in (high quality) makeup. A sparkling example was unsuccessful for a different reason: it simply did not have enough flavour for the bubbles.

Even the best of these watery-pale wines are challenging though. Serve them as an aperitif to non wine-buff friends and there’s a high risk of them being swallowed without anyone pausing to think about what’s in their glasses. Put them with any flavoursome dish and they will probably suffer the same fate. Maybe you should save them for the day when you are preparing a very, very plainly cooked flat fish.

My own experience of the variety is actually slightly wider than many of the others at the lunch because eight or so years ago I was one of a pair of overseas judges at the first Japan Wine Competition at which I sipped and spat a long series of examples, often struggling to find words to describe their fleeting flavours. My favourites then were, I discovered, still among my favourites today: Grace (the only one to have overt gingerbread and clove spice) and Rubaiyat (the most quince-like), along with L’Orient (maybe the most complex) and Marquis (which combines lemon rind with the apple).

I have no idea where these wines fit into my or any non-Japanese wine drinker’s repertoire; they are a bit like a subtly-patterned tie that goes very well with a shirt one rarely wears. In this, they are not unlike the best examples of Swiss Chasselas and, like those wines, should definitely be sealed under screwcaps to maintain their freshness

What's the frequency?

“My grandparents drink wine every day. I remember, when I was about 6 years old [15 years ago], my parents used to do that too. Now it’s when they see friends or for more special meals. Once or twice a week. Maybe three times...”

Single conversations should not be accorded undue significance, but when they seem to illustrate statistical trends it’s worth paying them a little attention. The words in the first paragraph were spoken by a bright, wine-enthusiastic 21 year old French girl studying for her wine business Masters at the Dijon Business School. Her parents live in Rasteau where they have a vineyard and are members of the cooperative. Yes, that’s right, 50-something year-olds who grow grapes for a living now drink wine less frequently than many lawyers and doctors in London or New York.

It would be easy to dismiss these people as oddities, but as I say, they seem to illustrate official French statistics that show over a third of the population as officially non-wine-drinkers. (The figure for women is close to 50%). The 21 year old’s comment also reflects research findings that link regular consumption to advanced age. Every time an old Frenchman dies, the average per-capita consumption fractionally drops...

Later in the same conversation, there was another little insight. “When I worked at the cellar door [in Rasteau] pouring wine for visitors, the men liked the [Cotes du Rhone] red and white but the women often said they found it too dry. And when that happened, the men didn’t buy...”

As I say, it’s just an anecdote and easy to dismiss. Especially if you’re an ostrich-minded member of the wine industry (a large proportion of the breed, I fear), or someone who simply enjoys a daily glass or two and wants to see others gain the pleasure you do. Not forgetting the health benefits.

But there’s the rub. Or couple of rubs. Most of the articles I’ve read suggest that those health benefits are actually associated with daily doses of a very small glass – and certainly not the half bottle favoured by many who believe themselves to be moderate wine drinkers. In fact significant risk of serious liver damage apparently begins at four bottles per week. In other words, half a bottle a night and an extra half with your Sunday lunch is not exactly what the doctor ordered.

Then there’s the officially-sanctioned suggestion that we should all take a couple of alcohol-free days per week to avoid becoming dependent. I can think of plenty of my wine industry friends who find the idea almost unimaginable (“I can’t remember the last day I didn’t have at least a glass”). But how many other mind- and body-altering substances would we all feel happy about ingesting every 24 hours? Caffeine is the obvious riposte, and maybe a similar weekly break from that drug would be no bad thing either for those of us who can easily down two or three cups each tea and coffee between dawn and dusk...

So, over to you, dear reader. What’s your frequency? Daily? Once, twice or thrice weekly?

Reaction to Alastair Campbell's BBC Panorama programme: "Britain's hidden alcoholics"

“I wish people would stop going on about binge drinking and the supposed damage caused by alcohol. The anti alcohol lobby simply wants to stop us all from enjoying ourselves. Obviously some people abuse alcohol, but they’re mostly kids over-indulging in spirits, RTDs and beer. Most wine drinkers consume in moderation and with food and wine is actually good for one's health. Get off our backs!”

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“I wish people would stop going on about excessive bonuses and the damage they do to our social structure. The banker-bashing lobby simply wants to stop us all making a bit of money. Obviously some people get bonuses that are a bit too big, but they’re just the chief execs who pocket a few million every year. Most bankers are like me. We work hard and earn our £250k bonuses and without banking, where would our economy be? Get off our backs!“

Reading and listening to wine industry reaction to efforts by the medical profession to reduce consumption is remarkably reminiscent of the bankers' response to any suggestion that their bonuses are abusive.

Alastair Campbell's programme was thoughtful and thought-provoking. People who hate its presenter's role in the lead up the the Iraq war (and possibly his role as Tony Blair's right-hand-man) can use that hatred to dismiss everything he said - and his frank description of his experience as an alcoholic. Some of those same people may also dislike Anne Robinson enough to sidestep the Weakest Link presenter's account of her alcoholism. But what about the middle class company director who described how his wine drinking had almost destroyed his liver? And the 30-year-old designer who talked about how she had switched from vodka to wine, and lost all control of her life?

It's harder too, to shut one's mind to the ambulance men revealing that the majority of the alcohol-damaged people they are scraping off the street are business people in suits. harder too to dismiss the doctors who point out that liver disease (at which the significant risk begins at around half a bottle of wine per per day) is the only medical condition to be on the rise in the UK (by 4-500% in recent years).

As one of the doctors insightfully commented: in Britain, we've adopted the European habit of drinking wine with our meals but we haven't dropped our tradition of boozing without food. So we do both - and end up with the worst of all worlds.

Even assuming that we can honestly say that we don't need that half a bottle of wine (or so) we routinely enjoy every day, we should pause before ignoring the huge incidence of quiet wine-driven alcohol abuse to be found in suburban streets around the country, or pretending that it isn't there. Unless we want to behave like those bankers...

Dinner priorities

Imagine for a moment, you are joining five of your friends who are already sitting at a restaurant table. They are all tucking into plates of the same delicious roast chicken but the contents of their glasses differ. Al is drinking Cotes du Rhone; Bea is sipping at a Riesling; Carl’s tankard is full of Guiness; Dee is on water and Ed has a Coke.

Ok, let’s change the picture. The same five friends are sitting at the same table. This time, they all have glasses of a delicious Cotes du Rhone (probably the one Al was drinking in the other scenario) but as you’ll have guessed, it’s the food that’s diverse. Al is eating the same chicken as before, Bea is relishing a prawn curry, Carl is enjoying a slice of rare roast beef, Dee has decided to pass and Ed has a slice of chocolate cake.

Setting aside the deliberate exaggeration, the first picture is one you might be more likely to encounter in the US, where restaurants have more dynamic wine-by-the-glass programmes; the second reflects the European tradition of diners tending to compromise over which bottle of wine they will all drink with their varied dishes.

My question is “given the fact that you are going to be sitting at these tables with your friends, does one of the scenarios appeal to you more than the other. If so, which would it be? And why?

My own view, for what it’s worth, is that if it’s a dinner with friends, I’d be equally happy with either. And yes, I do have friends who drink Coke with their chicken and wouldn’t mind washing their chocolate cake down with a glass of red.

People are fascinated by potatoes

Whenever I tell people that I know a little about potatoes, there's a brief pause while - as I now appreciate - they privately relish the prospect of being able to broaden their knowledge of a subject in which so many of them are fascinated. I tell them about the 4,000 varieties of potato, all of which probably come from one place in Peru. I remind them that the roast potato on our plate is of the same family as the deadly nightshade, and that man domesticated potatoes 8,000 years ago and that they first arrived in Asia in around 1600, a few decades before they were introduced to Europe. Then I go on to list some of my favourite types of potato - Désirée, King Edward, Maris Piper and Highland Burgundy Red - and the best ways to cook them.

Of course there are some - you might be among them - who are surprised to learn about the depth of general interest in potatoes. But just think how many we all eat, and the range of potatoes that are now on offer in supermarkets. Just consider the evidence: the popularity of websites like lovepotatoes, and the number of online references to potatoes. Try googling "potatoes" and you'll find there are a staggering 377,000,000 results.

I'm joking of course (though not about that google statistic). I actually know very little about potatoes. Like most other humans, I enjoy eating them in a number of forms and could, if tortured, list a maximum of half a dozen varieties (a list that wouldn't include Highland Burgundy Red by the way). You may have read my first paragraph with a growing hunger for a lot more information - or you may have thought "that's enough for the moment thank you..." And you might actually have even questioned the title of this post. "No", you might have thought, "people may have a passing curiosity about potatoes, but they're not really that interested in them".

Which is precisely what I'd say about wine. At best, to judge by the number of sites on offer by Google (919,000,000), they are more than a third as interested in wine, with its myriad varieties and place in western culture as in the humble spud.

People who are interested in anything tend to imagine that large numbers of other people share their enthusiasm - or would if given the chance and the encouragement. In a few cases they can justify that belief. Tens of millions of viewers do tune into watch soccer matches. These sorts of numbers do not show any visible signs of a fascination with wine. They don't buy large numbers of books or magazines or read blogs. When newspapers drop their wine columns or columnists, the protests are audible but limited.

The he enthusiasts blame negative forces. We would, they claim, have lots more wine columns in newspapers and wine programmes on television if it weren't for narrow-minded publishers and tv companies who won't let people have them. It's only a lack of advertising, they say, that explains the lack of wine columns - while conveniently overlooking the absence of regular articles on watches in publications that are full of Rolex ads.

The point behind this post is that a misplaced belief in a widespread interest in wine handily removes the need for wine producers to make an effort to engage with potential buyers. When these enthusiasts say things like "surely there is a difficulty that's inherent in the complexity that we most like about wine?" and "I look for information on the internet first, then I buy" (both direct quotes), they reveal the gulf that lies between them and the vast majority of normal potato eaters and wine drinkers.

Why do you do what you do? (a question for professionals)

Why do you make wine - and make it in the way you do? Or choose and sell wine that somebody else has made? Beyond doing so as a way to pay your bills? (Please ponder your answer and scroll down)
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Okay, to my mind, there's only one top level answer:

"to give somebody something they - and possibly their friends/family around them - are going to enjoy drinking, and for a price they think reasonable".

Everything beyond that - thoughts such as "expressing the terroir of my region" should be secondary. Because, if it isn't a pleasurable drink, why should anyone but the most obsessive wine geek, care about the terroir?

If this seems a little simplistic to you, I'm sorry, but I think it raises some pretty fundamental questions. If you're faced with a rainy, cold vintage, do you avail yourself of the 15% allowance to make your wine prettier? If you've made your first pure Sangiovese or Gruner Veltliner in a place where it's never been grown before, and it's pleasant enough but one-dimensional, do you simply bottle it and sell it for a (relatively high) price that reflects your costs of production, or do you decide not to sell this vintage (blending it instead into something else)? Or improve it by adding a small dose of something else?

Most winemakers I know prefer to follow the purist line, allowing their customers to experience the unripe grapes or simple flavours. But why? If they were cooks they would be a lot less happy to send out a dish they knew to be sub-standard. There aren't many restaurants where waiters say "Sorry if the steak's tough, but that was the best the butcher could provide".

In the old days, when there were far fewer regions and far fewer decent vintages, second-rate wine was something people often had to put up with. Today, no one needs to drink - or eat - anything they don't enjoy.

Food - and drink - for thought.

Sweet baby roo

Following up on my post about Moscato, here's the latest baby from Yellow Tail, along with a link to the press release