Plenty O'Toole

THE PHOTOGRAPH 'Plenty O'Toole' by Nigel Bradley (Decanter, Wine Spectator) was taken to accompany a column in The Connexion about folding helicopters, flappy-padle cork screws, and James Bond. I like the image because it's also a visual metaphor for determination in the face of pretentiousness, an important trait for a wine critic. It's no accident that Plenty is confronted by a bottle from Château d'Arse (a name that evokes the place where many wine writers have their heads).

It's the thought that counts when you are drunk at Christmas

HOW MUCH do you need to drink to feel the life and soul of the party? Ig Noble Prize-winning psychology researchers from Grenoble University recruited subjects to compare levels of intoxication with reports of how seductive, intelligent, original and funny subjects felt. Intoxication is not a simple consequence of consuming alcohol, they say; it results (more importantly) from the psychological effect of believing alcohol has been drunk. Subjects who believed they had drunk alcohol - even those that had not - gave themselves the most positive evaluations. A sobering thought: designated drivers could be getting 'drunk' on alcohol-free booze.

Full article first published in The Connexion (December, 2013)

Rumpole's wine case reveals price mystery

IN RUMPOLE and The Blind Tasting, Horace Rumpole attends a blind tasting at a fine wine shop as a guest of his colleague Claude Erskine-Brown. Rumpole becomes curious about the cost of wine when several dozen cases of the shop's expensive St. Emilion from top estate Chateau Cheval Blanc turn up in his client's garage. As his wine knowledge goes only as far as Pommeroy's wine bar's Chateau Fleet Street, he asks an expert for help. He learns that wine is not very expensive to make and that price and quality, like law and justice, are not always as closely related as they should be. The relation in some cases is stretched beyond belief.

Full article first published in The Connexion (November, 2013)

Is wine journalism a load of nonsense?

A SPAT on Twitter between wine journalists and wine merchants exposed the journalists to accusation of lazily filling their columns with lame reviews of favourite wines from The Wine Society. "To do otherwise would be perverse," one writer tweeted in defense of the 'what to drink and where to find it' dumbed-down approach to wine journalism. But if sensible wine writing resembles an internal memo for members of The Wine Society, what would "perverse" wine writing look like instead? Hugh Johnson wrote about wine with sensuous prose; Kermit Lynch wrote about the pleasures of wine and never engaged in contrived tasting notes.

Full article first published in The Connexion (October, 2013)

Photograph of Kermit Lynch by Peter DaSilva

Historic vintage for French appellations?

AS FRANCE casts off its 78-year old appellation system in favour of an EU-approved scheme, should wines lovers mourn its passing? No, they should not. With AOCs proliferating and industrial production widespread, France's leading consumer magazine says 40% of French appellation wines are unworthy of their discredited labels and 65% communicate nothing about terroir. Inspection will go beyond sniffing the odd vat sample under new EU rules. The new labels are changing buying habits. But never buy a wine that showcases its appellation - the producer is selling it based on the appellation's perceived quality, not his/her skill.

Full article first published in The Connexion (September, 2013)

This summer's crazy rosé craze

WE WERE out of rosé. I squeezed red and white wine into a pichet from two bag-in-boxes until a rosé colour was achieved. The shame made me want to string the bags around my neck as a penance like the ancient mariner's albatross. My crime is matched by the grapefruit-flavoured disrespect heaped on rosé by Loire producers of Rosé-Pamp. In a risible attempt to give their flavoured wine a veneer of sophistication, marketers trace its origin to a Kir Vendômois (unknown to Google). The supermarket space dedicated to Rosé-Pamp has almost eclipsed the good news coming out of the Loire Valley: sales of Cabernet d’Anjou are up 10%. 

Full article first published in The Connexion (August, 2013)

Johnny's 'tipple' leaves sour taste

FRANCE'S hard-living geezer of American rock 'n' roll Johnny Hallyday has “discovered” wine. Actually, the man who has made a career out of singing other people’s songs is lending his name to another person’s wine (blended from various sources). "We regret its lack of character," sniffs Le Parisien. Bad reviews won't count because if you’re prepared to tattoo his image on your body, you’ll pay €8.60 to have him over for dinner. With American-style fast-food outlets outnumbering real restaurants in France, and top French chefs now awarding labels to restaurants that actually use ingredients, is it time for a label recognising authentic wine? 

Full article first published in The Connexion (July, 2013)

The grapes of climate’s wrath

TWO years ago the Spanish winemaker Miguel Torres told me he had abandoned plans to make wine in China as the country had no terroir suitable for viticulture. His analysis appeared to be supported by the fact that Chinese billionaires were then buying up Bordeaux estates. But climate researchers say rising temperatures will transform the viticultural landscape as we know it by 2050 and that Torres may have spoken too soon. Potential future wine regions include mountainous central China where giant pandas live. Torres’ vineyards in Catalonia will soon be inhospitable to viticulture. Winemaking is, however, accustomed to climate change.

Full article first published in The Connexion (June, 2013)

French are clueless about buying wine

THE average French shopper takes one minute and 26 seconds to choose a bottle of wine from a supermarket shelf. Is this ability to take swift decisions about wine an example of French savoir-vivre? No, it isn’t. The average French supermarket shopper knows nothing about wine and feels lost in the wine aisle. Why do shoppers learn nothing about wine when supermarkets stock about 1,200 different bottles to choose from? Shoppers keep buying such forgettable wines because nothing is learned from drinking them. Choosing wine by the marketing mix (price, packaging, promotion) is no substitute for using wine knowledge to inform choices.

Full article first published in The Connexion (May, 2013)

Gold medals have lost their glitter

HOW can a gold medal-winning wine from one competition end up without any award in another competition? Astonishingly, the likelihood of receiving a gold medal in a wine competition can be statistically explained by chance alone. A wine’s performance in one competition is also not correlated with its performance in another, say researchers. Wine judges' inconsistency and lack of peer concordance devalue medals. However, competitions are a 'win/no lose' proposition for winemakers because nobody comments on wines that do not win. Consumers appropriately remain unimpressed by the medals tombola.

Full article first published in The Connexion (April, 2013)

Sniffing out the buffs from bluffers

IS the wine expert's “cigars, truffles and boysenberries” just a dazzling party trick? Do such words convey anything useful about a wine's flavour? The ability to match tasting notes with wines appears to be random, even among experienced drinkers, even when consutling their own notes! What is going on when someone descants about "rose petals on the nose" or even "violent tits"? Wine words say more about the price of a wine than its flavour. "Cigar" sounds expensive; "fruity" sounds cheap. Beyond showing appreciation, wInespeak is also a sign of logorrhoea, say experts. Ultimately, Bordeaux tastes more like Bordeaux than "truffles".

Full article first published in The Connexion (March, 2013)

It's always the season for spicy vin chaud

AMONG the misguided traditions that can limit your enjoyment of wine, few are more absurd than the tradition of drinking mulled wine at Christmas markets only. Mulled wine is easy to make and personalise with your own secret ingredient to complement the usual cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, vanilla and cloves. The Nordic version glögg contains vodka or aquavit. In Germany, glühwien (literally “glow wine”, from the hot irons used for mulling) is sometimes laced with rum. Keith Floyd was a fan. He laced his version with illegal poitin, aka “Irish moonshine”. Vin chaud is a mid-winter treat not to be reserved for Christmas markets only. 

Full article first published in The Connexion (February, 2013)

Make red wine part of a Happy New Year

OF ALL the well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions, pledging to reduce your red wine consumption may be one of the most misguided. Red wine naturally contains probiotics, micro-organisms that increase beneficial gut bacteria. Red wine also contains Resveratrol, a powerful antioxidant in red grape skins. Probiotics and resveratrol may be the keys to degestive health, weight control, improved mobility and endurance, reduced muscle and bone degeneration, mental health and longevity. Despite resveratrol's capacity to ward off dementia, though, elderly inhabitants on the red wine-loving Greek island of Ikaria appear to forget to die.

Full article first published in The Connexion (January, 2013)

At long last, a wine gadget that takes your breath away

MY LOCAL wine shop has doubled the space allotted to wine accessories in the run up to Christmas. Are they any good? The inadequately short spout on my Screwpul aerator achieves nothing for all the gurgling; a decanter is better for divesting wine of sulphite aromas (or a food blender). A gadget to soften tannins would need to deliver extreme temperatures and pure oxygen. My Vacuvin Champagne Saver broke after a few bottles - it's now as little use as a spoon in an open bottle’s neck. Offer breath-test kits for Christmas - a gendarme once showed me she didn't know how to use one at the roadside, and sent me dizzily on my way.

Full article first published in The Connexion (December, 2012)

Go for something new, not Nouveau

WHEN the Nouveau is released on the third Thursday of November, wine lovers everywhere unite in a thirst for Beaujolais - for one night we are all from Beaujolais. But where is Beaujolais from? Wine experts are muddled and even Beaujolais Crus are hard to identify as being from Beaujolais when you inspect their labels. Why do experts say it is part of Burgundy? It isn't. It has its own signature grape (Gamay), viticultural traditions and distinctive terroirs (Haut and Bas). The best Beaujolais Crus come from vineyards in the best Beaujolais-Villages terroirs and are compared to fine Burgundy reds - a mistake only a muddled wine expert would make.

Full article first published in The Connexion (November, 2012).

Wines that fly do not always take off

WHY does flying in a cabin at 30,000 feet affect aroma and flavour perception? Fatigued palates, inappropriate food and wine service temperatures and a cabin’s lack of fresh oxygen all inhibit taste. But the most curious factor is the cabin's white noise. Paul Sapin makes airline wines on an industrial scale in France. They are not intended to express terroir - like airline meals, they need to do battle in the sky. Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne won best First Class Sparkling Wine for Air France in Business Traveller's Cellars in the Sky competition (held recently in a London hotel). Does this delicate Champagne taste of anything at 30,000 feet?

Full article first published in The Connexion (October, 2012)

'Tis the season of mystification not mellow fruitfulness

HYDROMETERS and spectrometers are on hand this month when winemakers trade farm overalls for white coats and morph from bacchanalian artisans into pointy-headed geeks. Cellars are transformed in a flurry, too. As suddenly and completely as Prohibition speakeasies flip-flopped from boozy saloons into respectable cabaret diners just before a police raid, tasting tables with half-finished bottles are replaced by a jumble of oenological paraphernalia and clean jars yeast, sugar and acid. Give winemakers a wide berth in September - they prefer to discuss specific gravity or the Higgs boson rather than mellow fruitfulness.

Full article first published in The Connexion (September, 2012).

Enjoy some fruity passions found in the hedgerow

TED the blacksmith, Sister Lucy, Jones the church organist, Mrs Wigley, Fowles the chemist and old Mrs Pickering are my merry companions this summer, though I am not holidaying in Camberwick Green. I'm reading Margaret Vaughan - the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of wine-making. Where others see a hedge of wild flowers, she and her village oenophile friends see gallons of Hedgerow Punch. Despite her sensible shoes, she praises the “leg-buckling” quality of Mrs Wigley’s oak leaf wine. I re-read her Dandelion wine entry before grasping why it had her “negotiating her knicker elastic”. Learn the secrets of simple, Post Order winning, hedgerow wines.

Full article first published in The Connexion (August, 2012)

Tasting tour can be dull marketing or a magical delight

WHEN I gate-crashed another party’s tour in the tasting room, during a visit of the Mondavi winery in Napa Valley, California, their guide, Pamela, primly told me to rejoin my group whose tour was just starting. She had sized me up as a drinker, ejecting me for a sobering 90-minute tour with the tasting room as the longed-for, penultimate step. Gatecrashing a tour in the tasting room undermines a winery's strategy to turn uneducated visitors into educated ones. Knowledge acquired on a tour becomes relevant to visitors, becomes part of their identity (no matter how temporarily); and identification leads to consumption, for those prepared to wait.

Full article first published in The Connexion (July, 2012)

Waiter, waiter! There’s a snake in my wine

OF ALL THE wine faults, a snake in your wine must rank among the most unpalatable. It may be one of the commonest in wines made from mechanically-harvested grapes. If you get mousiness on the palate, however, you will be relieved to learn this is a sign of Brettanomyces yeast (a winemaker’s most common and vexatious friend/enemy) not mice. It can be treated with large doses of SO₂ - winemaking's equivalent of the military's "bomb a village to save it". But with wine increasingly packaged in Bisphenol-rich plastic bottles and plastic-lined containers, and man boobs on the rise, a snake may be your wine’s least venomous fault.

Full article first published in The Connexion (June, 2012)