Not all change is for the worse. Go into any supermarket in search of an urgent bottle of wine, and you will find a range of respectable bottles at reasonable prices. The buyers are experts and they drive hard deals with the suppliers: large orders for low profit margins. A club wine committee on which I serve was once looking for a house chablis. Our stoutly old-fashioned members have not caught up with the current market and still expect to pay very little for an acceptable drop of petit chablis. After tasting some cheap but lamentable bottles, composing fierce missives to the wine merchants who were to blame, and wishing that the cat or horse which they employed in their chablis plant would have an early and final trip to the vet, we ended up buying some from Tesco. Once relabelled, it served its purpose. The other Christmas, that same chain had a presentable St-Joseph for under a fiver a bottle. It raced off the shelves. I wished that I had bought a lot more.
Think back a generation, to the socially insecure British middle classes, wishing to find a way to wine-drinking but terrified of making fools of themselves, along a route beset by snobbery. In many cases, the chosen route was indeed folly: Blue Nun, Liebfraumilch, Mateus Rose — and the worst of all, beaujolais nouveau. That took in people who really ought to have known better.
There was a further malign consequence. I am about to write something which will shock most of my readers. Even so, I shall persevere. Decent wine is made in Beaujolais. Fleurie, Moulin à Vent, Morgon: choose with care, and you should find a perfectly competent bottle. Last week, I came across one which was more than competent. A 2009 Chiroubles from Daniel Bouland, it would have benefited from decanting and from another year’s ageing. I was trying to work out what it was, until one of my fellow-tasters blurted out the secret before I said anything. I was grateful, because that saved me from a wilderness of erroneous guesses.
Wine tastings can be a trial, if your name begins with ‘A’. There will come a moment when you have to taste blind, and then read out your speculations, in alphabetical order. If you are me, you then envy the facility of the Irishman at the wine-tasting in Burgundy.
It was organised by one of the leading houses, and they had invited the eminences of the British wine-writing trade. But someone’s Rolodex had slipped and an invitation found its way to a man from the Ballygobeen Bugle. The agriculture correspondent, he was also ex officio the wine correspondent. The atmosphere was hushed, reverential. The great ones were sniffing, sipping and spitting. They would occasionally make a furrowed-browed note. He was swigging and swilling and shoving out his glass for more. He did not make notes. He did chortle. His spittoon stayed dry.
The Burgundians were growing thin-lipped. This did not inhibit his geniality. Finally, pouring him more wine through gritted teeth, one of the hosts said: ‘I do not know why we are giving you zis, M’sieu. You clearly do not appreciate what you are drinking.’ ‘Ho no, Sorr. Yer wrong there. I may not have the lingo like these grand ladies and gentlemen, but I’m enjoyin mesel. Why, Sorr, dat last glass: it was like havin’ an angel pissin’ down yer troat.’ The Burgundians were instantly appeased. Even finer bottles were opened. There was talk of renaming his favourite ‘le Cuvée de pisse des anges’. I do not think that my wine-tasting efforts will ever receive a similar benediction.
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