Why the French are clueless about wine: Confessions of a British wine columnist in France Paperback (Dec, 2020)

How is man boobs a wine fault? How can you spot a fake wine? Will China be making the world's greatest wines soon? How do you spot a good wine list? And choose well from a bad one? Are medals worth anything? What should you drink at 35,000 feet? Why is wine writing dull? Are wine gadgets just Plenty O'Toole? What's boring about Victoria Moore? And how can you learn all you need to know about wine?

These entertaining, offbeat columns on wine culture (from three years as columnist at France's The Connexion newspaper) tell you all you need to know about choosing, enjoying, and talking about wine - and how to avoid the wines you shouldn't be drinking. 

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• Paperback : 138 pages
• ISBN-13 : 979-8687568340
• Dimensions : 5 x 0.32 x 8 inches
• Publisher : Independently published (November 14, 2020)
• ASIN : B08NDVJ63W
• Language: : English

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Absolute mangoes 2.0

EVER since Jilly Goolden exclaimed “Absolute mangoes!” on the BBC’s Food and Drink programme, earning unintended titters, wine has had a communication problem. Web-friendly wine merchants say we should eschew overripe or unhinged tasting notes in favour of comparisons from unconventional sources, like music or film, as in: "I'm getting heaps of Shirley Bassey. Absolute Goldfinger." Malcolm Gluck was a pioneer of this sort of nonsense in The Guardian where a wine might be "a gruff old bruiser". The next time a wine-loving computer geek compares a Pinot Noir to Brad Pitt on the gangster film Snatch, just reply "Absolute mangoes!"

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

Timely reminder that wine should not be rushed

SLOW FOOD has publised its second wine guide in English - 18 years after its first English-language wine guide. Why has Slow Food taken so long to turn its attention back to wine? Part of the reason is that wine is already perceived as a slow product. But is it fair to say that wine isn’t a “fast” product? Unscrupulous winemakers do accelerate winemaking and aging using common techniques. Sadly, “live fast, die young” old-before-their-time wines won’t leave good-looking corpses. There is little evidence that wine is consumed leisurely nowadays, either. Slow Wine 2012 reminds us that not all the wines of our time respect it or are worthy of it. 

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

No need to fear competition by Chinese reds

FOLLOWING the victory of Chinese red wines over French ones at a taste-off in Beijing, The Connexion asked: “Should French wine growers be nervous?” My answer is "no". The competition pitted China’s best against some ho-hum Bordeaux wines. And, as Spanish winemaker Miguel Torres told me, “China doesn’t have any good terroir.” Even so, the French now make Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux imitations in Ningxia province - an obliging hussy of a terroir just south of the Gobi Desert. Enjoy the spectacle of Chinese wine officials trying to establish China's wine credentials, like a U.S. presidential candidate trying to establish his Irish roots.

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

My ultimate New Year's resolution for wine Tour de France

IF YOU USE the Mayan calendar, you will know that it’s coming to the end of its 5,125-year cycle this year. If you’re also inclined to apocalyptic thinking, you might assume that the Mayan calendar’s expiration heralds the actual end of days, too. Why risk assuming the end isn’t nigh? I resolve this year to try the best wines from France’s 12 wine-growing regions and treat myself to bottles from legendary producers. Call it a “wine bucket list”. Those who anticipate an 'end of the world  moment' typically refer to the period afterwards as “the Great Disappointment”. But if you follow my advice, you won’t be disappointed. You will, however, be penniless. 

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

Beaujolais Nouveau - a joyful aperitif or whiplash in a bottle

WHEN I was ten years old, I helped my dad to make space in our garage for the arrival of his Beaujolais Nouveau. I thought it must be a big car because we cleared all along one wall. Shortly after, I began to associate Beaujolais Nouveau with dupery and disappointment, as many wine-lovers do. Yet, better examples (yes, they exist) are a by-word for juicy, refreshing and appetisingly acidic plonk. They may handle unpredictably: too much acidity and they over-steer giving your tongue whiplash; too little acidity and they under-steer sloshing over the palate. For vintage flavours, test-drive a Cru Beaujolais from any of the appellation's 10 cru vineyards. 

Full article first published in The Connexion (November, 2011)

A class of wine

IN THE SPIRIT of la rentrée scolaire, here is a class of wine. Pick a bottle. Inspect the label. If a year isn’t indicated, the wine was blended from several vintages. Pick another bottle. Who made, bottled and/or commercialised the wine: a merchant (négociant), a cooperative (cave coopérative), or an artisan (vigneron indépendant)? Preferably, the same person should make, bottle and commercialise a wine. If the wine has a screwcap or a plastic cork, make sure it is not over a year old. Decanting does not soften tannins, but it helps to dissipate sulphite aromas; so you should decant a young wine longer than an old wine. Now, pour the wine...

Full article first published in The Connexion (September 2011)

The screwcap revolution 10 (or 11) years on

BEFORE Facebook, it took time for one revolution to inspire another. Take screwcaps. Invented in 1889, in Barnsley, they didn’t shake up the wine world for another 111 years. Screwcaps promised to rid wine of Trichloroanisole (TCA), the chemical in tainted corks making wine smell ‘corked’. But the cork industry cleaned up its act. Cork ‘failure’ is now 2-5% (i.e. better than typical condom use). TCA’s rarity made Spotting a Corked Wine the wine aficionado’s party trick. Wine critics say the 'screwcap palate' is bitter, coarse and astringent with blunt fruit and an abrupt, harshly dry finish. Spotting a Screwcapped Wine is their new party trick.

First published in The Connexion (April 2011)

Champagne and Cinnamon Toast Crunch is not my cup of tea

Wine writers wring hands over the 'pairing with food' issue; there are complex pairing charts riddled with warnings: 'Here be dragons'. Wacky wine blogger Gary Vaynerchuck caused a hoo-ha by pairing wine with breakfast cereal on his internet show (unless you're a wine-loving infant, his advice is of no utility). A Japanese tea lady gave me tips: "Few pairings are wrong,” she said. “If in doubt, apply the inverse effort principle. For food with complex flavours, choose a tea with a simpler profile. And vice-versa.” Very yin-yang. You can modify a wine (or tea) by changing its temperature, too. Even a Merlot can be tricked into going with spicy Indian food.

Full article first published in The Connexion (February 2011).

Wine gadgets 'licenced to overkill'

JANUARY is a time for offloading unwanted Christmas gifts on eBay. Among them should be certain wine accessories. Wine paraphernalia manufacturers assume Christmas' bright lights turn ordinary people into gadget fetishists, offering us flappy-paddle corkscrews, electric suction pumps, argon gas preserving canisters and combination lock wine stoppers. Who put James Bond's master of invention, 'Q', in charge of wine gadgets? Flappy-paddle corkscrews take three hands to operate and the self-congratulation that comes with using one is diminished by the silly feeling you've used a folding helicopter to cross the street. Very Plenty O'Toole.

Full article first published in The Connexion (January 2011).

Photograph of Plenty O'Toole by Nye Bradley.