Friday, February 25, 2011

Are we drinking better, or just better imitations?




















CHÂTEAU VULI’s upmarket red wine is lightly oaked with a wild vanilla aftertaste. These flavours come from additives, including an old table, a vanilla-scented air-freshener and cardboard. While not forbidden in Groland (France’s satirical double in the eponymous Canal+ TV news show), how much does this resemble real viticulture? Quite a lot. Industrial-scale wineries pump out highly manipulated, flavour-enhanced, similar-tasting, cheapish imitations of expensive wines. Advocates of these techniques emphasise “giving consumers what they want”. The losers are people (like me) who want to drink more, really good, inexpensive wines.


Full article first published in The Connexion (March 2011)

SEE BELOW FOR CHATEAU VULI FROM GROLAND