The other night I opened a red from Moulis en Medoc.  It smelled like a rugby player’s socks and tasted like oven cleaner.  “Oh well,” I told myself philosophically. “Duff bottle.  Can’t win ‘em all.”

But if we are to believe a story that ran throughout the British media last week, the fault was entirely mine.  Apparently I had opened the bottle on the wrong day of the week.  On another day the same wine would have smelled of tulips and tasted like nectar, or something like that. Read the rest of this entry »

Sipping this wine the other day, I reflected on how dramatically tastes and habits change. In the 1970s I drank Chablis a lot. Nowadays I drink it once every four or five years. This is not because I like it any less. On the contrary, I am sure I get far more out of it now than I did thirty years ago. So what has changed?

The short answer is “everything”.   If the past is another country, the 1970s are another planet.  Spacehoppers.  Jumbo flares. Chopper bicycles.  Kipper ties.  Even at the time it seemed an aesthetic wasteland; now it is beyond comprehension.

The popular wines of that period seem equally baffling, or at any rate many of them do.  Thinking back as dispassionately as I can, I should say they fell into three categories.  First you had the stinkers: Liebfraumilch; “Chianti” in raffia baskets; supermarket carafes from California.  All were indefensible.  Most have long since dribbled down the pissoir of history. Read the rest of this entry »

My name on the label is a guarantee of irreproachable quality, recognized around the world.
André Lurton

Immodest?  Moi?  But the maddening thing is, he’s right. Lurton is one of the big names of Bordeaux, and his wines are excellent.

The family’s empire began with François Lurton’s Château Bonnet.  In the 1920s François added the Margaux property Château Brane Cantenac. Then, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his sons André and Lucien bought up many more vineyards, so that André himself now owns eleven châteaux in Bordeaux and his wider family owns properties in Languedoc, Corbieres, Spain, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.  Family members also consult for two dozen other firms all over the world.

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Now and again over the past year I have dispensed advice about buying wine during these times of economic woe. This advice was given only partly with tongue in cheek. The fact is, very many of us must now tighten our belts. Those of us who love fine wine must either drink less of it, or lower our standards, or find some way of getting the same for less money.

The third option seems the least unattractive. But what does this amount to in practice? In the case of French wine, one trick is to seek out the more obscure appellations, such as Quincy or Monthelie or St. Aubin, whose better examples are almost indistinguishable from their more famous (and much costlier) neighbours – respectively Sancerre, Volnay and Puligny-Montrachet.  But there is another strategy. Read the rest of this entry »

A decidedly unfashionable grape, Riesling.  A century ago it was held in much higher esteem.  In those days Hocks – Rhenish Rieslings – were better known than white Burgundies, and they commanded higher prices.  Nowadays the only people still keen on Riesling live in Riesling-growing areas.  The rest of the world has lost interest.  Contemporary taste favours wines that are heavily oaked and super-strong.  Riesling can be neither.

There may be one other reason for the grape’s low popularity.  With two or three years’ bottle-age, Riesling acquires a curious odour, often likened to petrol or kerosene.  This is caused by a flavour compound called 1,1,6-trimethyl-1,2-dihydronaphthalene, more commonly known as TDN.  Read the rest of this entry »

I have just been watching Lost Horizon, the 1937 Frank Capra movie. It is a delightful film - beautifully shot, charmingly acted - and it has prompted much rumination on my part.

It tells the story of a group of travellers in Asia, led by a dashing British soldier-philosopher played by Ronald Colman. As they escape a violent insurrection in China, their plane is hijacked. Eventually they crash-land in the remote Himalayan valley of Shangri-La. Read the rest of this entry »

Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmen’s only scourge,
Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis?
O, were mine eyeballs into bullets turn’d,
That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!

Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 1

Once upon a time a sizeable chunk of France lay in English hands, and it was the task of John Talbot, First Earl of Shrewsbury, to keep it that way. The old boy was good at his job. He won more than forty battles and in the process killed many revolting Frenchmen. Read the rest of this entry »

Alistair Darling is the minister responsible for Britain’s finances. Lately Britain’s finances have not been doing well. However unfairly, many people are holding Mr Darling to blame. In an interview with the Guardian, he revealed how these people are expressing their displeasure. He and his wife recently ate in a restaurant with another couple. When they tried to order a second bottle of wine,

“The waiter came over and said ‘too much wine’ in a loud voice. So we stuck to one bottle for the entire meal.”

If you have ever wondered why British food and British restaurants are so awful, this story tells you all you need to know. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who are supposed to know about these things agree that times are getting tougher. Economies are ultimately shaped by how people feel, and right now the predominant feelings are gloom and foreboding.

For those of us who can remember the 1970s the present worries seem eerily familiar. Soaring fuel prices, terrorism, environmental hysteria, the fear that our society and culture are sliding into a moronic abyss - today’s headlines take me straight back to the happy world of my teens. Read the rest of this entry »

By general consent 2005 was one of the greatest Burgundy vintages. Some are calling it the greatest ever. The richness, complexity and sheer majesty of these wines have been praised universally, even by those normally sceptical about Old World vino. The result, inevitably, has been record prices. Good Burgundy was never cheap, but the 2005 top growths now fetch the same as vintage Champagne.

Billionaires will doubtless be very happy. So too will professional wine critics, whose job lets them drink the very best. That just leaves the remaining 99.99999% of us. Our acquaintance with the better-known 2005 Burgundies will be confined to a wistful stare in our wine merchant’s, followed by a vicious gasp as our gaze settles on the price sticker. Read the rest of this entry »