Campaign for Real Wine

[UncleEbenezer]

Once upon a time, good wine was French. So was a lot of bad wine, and you needed a lot of expertise to avoid the latter. Italian and Spanish (at least, as seen in Blighty) tended to be low-to-mid-range, while German wine was a sick joke. And my first sight of New World wine was the so-called California Carafe, bland and tasteless.

Much has changed since then, mostly for the better. Prominent among the changes, New World wine has come of age. This first hit me around 1990, as I found myself enjoying a succession of reliably delicious Aussie wines. I missed most of the '90s due to being in Italy (where any non-Italian wines were distressingly hard to find), and when I came back to Blighty the whole scene was transformed. There was now old-world, much-expanded New World with (IMHO) Chile ousting Oz from top spot. Then there was New Europe and North Africa, from which my first new loves were Hungarian light summer whites. And there were odds&sods from around the world.

And New World wine had gained huge market share and mindshare. Not without reason: for the non-expert buyer, they're more reliable than old-world wines. That is to say, if you pick a bottle at random (at least in the lower prices), a French or Italian wine still leaves you at distressingly high risk of picking a real dud, while a Chilean or Aussie is much more predictable.

This has a parallel to what happened to beer a generation earlier. Traditional English ales were hugely variable, with the best being great but many being frankly disgusting. Then came Lager, which was much more consistent and reliable, and took the market by storm. When real ales got replaced by a token keg in many a pub, CAMRA was formed to fight back. Over the years, CAMRA has been very successful: not only is real ale once again pretty-much universally available, it's become less inconsistent. You're still at risk of a dud pint, but it's no longer such a big risk.

That raises the question. If the New World has done for wine what Lager did for beer, is it time for a Campaign for Real Wine to fight back?
Some objectives:
[list=][*]Educate the public in the virtues of Old World wines, and why (at best) they have so much to offer over New World sameness.
[*]Help improve peoples chances of picking a decent bottle at any given price point, and have some idea what to expect.
[*]Pressure shops into being more selective, and simply not stocking bad stuff at any price. This is probably more relevant to shops than to pubs/restaurants, which typically have a more limited and tailored selection.
[*]Help resurrect the best of Old World production. In the mass-market, not just the absurdly-expensive.[/list]

[tea42]

Trouble is The French who steadfastly refused to put intelligible things on the bottle. Instead of Norton, Malbec Reserve, Argentina 2015 you get Chateau De Plonk, Borgogne 2015! Some of them have seen the light, but most haven't. It even took flying winemakers introduced by Tony Laithwaite to teach many of them how to make decent wine consistently. Great idea, however best of luck!

[swill453]

Help improve peoples chances of picking a decent bottle at any given price point, and have some idea what to expect.

OK then, any broad brush clues?

For instance, if I go to the supermarket I might see Cotes du Rhone from £4 a bottle to maybe £10+. Any rule of thumb to work with? Other than "more expensive is better", of course.

One tip I had was at the cheaper end, go for a screw cap rather than a real cork, because relatively more of your money is going for the wine rather than the packaging. Synthetic cork maybe a middling compromise. Of course this might not apply to French or other old world wines.

Scott.

[UncleEbenezer]

Help improve peoples chances of picking a decent bottle at any given price point, and have some idea what to expect.

OK then, any broad brush clues?

For instance, if I go to the supermarket I might see Cotes du Rhone from £4 a bottle to maybe £10+. Any rule of thumb to work with? Other than "more expensive is better", of course.
Scott.

Sadly not from me. I include myself among those who need to be educated in French wines. The best I've had have been selected by people more expert than me. Indeed, I buy quite a lot more Italian and Spanish than French wines, precisely because I'm more confident in my ability to select them. Though some of those with the strongest traditions - like a Chianti - can have as much variability as a French wine.

Your cotes du rhone is very much a lottery. My best effort would be to delegate some part of the choice by picking up something bearing a Sainsburys "taste the difference" logo. I say Sainsburys because that's where I buy most of my wine: it's geographically my nearest and most convenient supplier, and my experience with their wines has, on balance, been good.

Yeah, that's right. Some of what I'm calling for is already happening.

[Slarti]

while German wine was a sick joke.

I'd have to argue with that.

What they mainly sold to us was a joke, but if you had a decent wine merchant who supplied proper estate produced wines, they were sublime.

Good traditional German wines are even harder to find on the street now and cost more as so much of their production has moved over to be an imitation of the chardonnay styles that seem to predominate in the white whine market.

When I can afford it and get it I like wines from Dr Crusius, Prinz or Domdechant Werner as they have all of the classic fruits and aromas you would expect.

I think I may have just talked myself into a trip to Germany some time in September.


Slarti

[bungeejumper]

One tip I had was at the cheaper end, go for a screw cap rather than a real cork, because relatively more of your money is going for the wine rather than the packaging. Synthetic cork maybe a middling compromise. Of course this might not apply to French or other old world wines.

AIUI, the reason why synthetic corks have become more common is that more and more good wines are being spoiled by the spreading "corked-wine fungus" phenomenon that's been ruining some quite good bottles. (It's actually not a fungal thing, but too complex to explain, so bear with me.) Jancis Robinson, whose opinions I always value even though I can't afford her tastes, says that even the best producers have been considering giving up on real corks because the spoilage rate is so high. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint says that a California trial of 2,800 wines in 2007 showed that 8% were spoiled. I believe that rates are coming down again now, but the losses from rejected bottles must have been horrendous.

I am told by my American friends that there are good Californian wines, and I can see for myself in the supermarket that there are cheap Californian wines, but I'm afraid have yet to find a good cheap (or fairly cheap) one. Zinfandel, for me, will remain the product of the devil's urinal until somebody can convince me otherwise. Yes, that's a challenge.

The good old German wines of the 1970s were indeed often superb, even at fairly low prices, especially if drunk very cold - I have memories of sitting on top of a castle rampart on the Mosel, drinking Piesporter Michelsberg - and egad, sir, to be there in the sunshine was very heaven! But Blue Nun and then a sugaring scandal in around 1981 (not, I think antifreeze, as in Austria) soon knocked the bottom out of the market, and the bigger bulk producers went over to dry wines, from which many never came back. I'd got a taste for drier wine by then, so I wasn't troubled by that.

Apart from price, I don't know any way of telling a good Cotes du Rhone from a bad one unless it's got the Villages appellation, which will improve the odds a bit. (Still had a nasty Villages from Tesco recently, though.) And I've been drinking some St Emilion from Lussac that's got far too much tannin for the natural smoothness to come through. The Sainsburys Taste the Difference Languedoc plonk (both red and white) is pretty good and at least consistent., but my fallback is the TtD Primitivo, which manages to be spicy and warm, and (rarity!) thoroughly consistent. Needs leaving to breathe for ten minutes, though.

Could go on indefinitely, but those are just my prejudices, and I'm sure others have their own.

BJ

[Slarti]

But Blue Nun and then a sugaring scandal in around 1981

My parents tried Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch somewhere in the middle of Germany in the late 60s and thought that they were wonderful!

A few years later they arrived in the UK and caused my parents some embarrassment when they served them to friends, without trying them first!


The bottles and labels were the same, but little else.


I did hear that the original wines still exist, but in very small quantities under different names, but could never track them down.

Slarti

[simoan]

I am told by my American friends that there are good Californian wines, and I can see for myself in the supermarket that there are cheap Californian wines, but I'm afraid have yet to find a good cheap (or fairly cheap) one. Zinfandel, for me, will remain the product of the devil's urinal until somebody can convince me otherwise. Yes, that's a challenge.

The Sainsburys Taste the Difference Languedoc plonk (both red and white) is pretty good and at least consistent., but my fallback is the TtD Primitivo, which manages to be spicy and warm, and (rarity!) thoroughly consistent. Needs leaving to breathe for ten minutes, though.

Could go on indefinitely, but those are just my prejudices, and I'm sure others have their own.

BJ

Interesting. Did you know Zinfandel and Primitivo are the same grape? The original name for both is Tribidrag an old Croatian variety. It's funny because I also like Primitivo (as made in Puglia), but not Zinfandel (as made in California). The difference is all to do with the styles the wines are made in and of course where the grapes are grown. Personally, I've only ever had one bottle of US wine I've ever liked and I no longer bother buying it.

With regard to the use of cork... I'd be gutted if they stopped using real cork as it would make my Coravin redundant

All the best, Si

[bungeejumper]

I did hear that the original wines still exist, but in very small quantities under different names, but could never track them down

I believe that the fairly small handful of traditional winegrowers who didn't just convert to the modern style have formed their own industry associations, which might help you with finding out which ones are worth pursuing.

It's all in here somewhere, I think. www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/german- ... t-20-years. But a warning, because Robinson's earnest style is more than a little halbtrocken. Good luck!

BJ

[JMN2]

Campaign for an alcoholic drink?

It will never catch on!

[Hallucigenia]

is it time for a Campaign for Real Wine to fight back?
Some objectives:
[list=][*]Educate the public in the virtues of Old World wines, and why (at best) they have so much to offer over New World sameness.
[*]Help improve peoples chances of picking a decent bottle at any given price point, and have some idea what to expect.
[*]Pressure shops into being more selective, and simply not stocking bad stuff at any price. This is probably more relevant to shops than to pubs/restaurants, which typically have a more limited and tailored selection.
[*]Help resurrect the best of Old World production. In the mass-market, not just the absurdly-expensive.[/list]

Sounds like you want to fight a battle that was fought 10-15 years ago. In particular I'd disagree with #3 - the standard of shop wine has never been so good, certainly from a technical point of view. Closures are better, cork is less tainted, equipment is better sanitised, grapes are picked at a better stage - it's all just better. That doesn't mean the wine will be to your taste, but it will be well made. In particular I would disagree with the second part of #3 - there's a lot more bad wine around in restaurants and in particular pubs than in supermarkets at least. At least, there's a lot of pubs that really don't care about wine - they're run by beer people, so at 60% of pubs just have pretty lowest-common-denominator stuff, as long as it says "merlot" or "pinot grigio" on the front they know they can sell it. About 30% of pubs seems to not care but at least outsource it to a merchant who does sort of care, and then about 10% treat their wine as a real labour of love.

#4 - I think there's actually a fair case to be made that these days the standard of winemaking in most of the Old World is up there with the New World - which wasn't true 20 years ago. The Old World is learning the value of stainless steel, microoxygenation and screwcaps, the New World has learnt to restrain its overuse of oak and to reflect a bit of terroir (to answer #1). There's a lot of great stuff being produced in the Old World, you just need to know where to look, typically by great producers from the famous bits taking their craft to non-appellation areas where land prices can be 10% of their home territory. So you get Burgundy producers making great Pinot Noir in the south of France, great nebbiolo from Barolo producers in the Langhe and so on.

#2 - there's actually a lot out there, starting with the bottles themselves which in supermarkets at least give a lot more info than they used to, plus apps like Vivino. Ultimately there's not real susbtitute for getting out there and drinking a lot of wine - but best to do it side by side as our brains work on differences. Even the free tastings at Majestic etc can help get you thinking about what you like in wine and how to find more of that kind of wine, as well as introducing you to things you might never have tried.

On other points :

California is a bit like Germany, there's a wealthy domestic market which sucks up most of the good stuff (which is great), and they also manage to shift a lot of incredibly naff sugar water overseas. The exchange rates don't help, there's little worth having below a tenner these days.

Of the zinfandels, Ravenswood used to regularly offer one that dipped below the £8 mark but is now a minimum of £10 (and I think Lodi is one notch down from the one I'm thinking of). They seem to be the winery that most often gets mentioned in relation to affordable "proper" zinfandel.

On corks - the big one was the Burgundy problem of the early noughties, I had to tip several bottles, I had friends who ended up tipping cases of white burgundy, the Wine Society was even pre-emptively telling people to junk some bottles. It's prompted a lot of research, and things are definitely better than they were.

Things to watch out for - well I guess the big one is latitude. A properly-balanced wine has a tension between sugar and acidity. Too much of the former and it feels flabby and uninteresting, too much of the latter and it just seems tart. Sugar comes from sun, so increases towards the equator, and the climate is more reliable. Acidity comes from cool climates, either through increasing altitude or going away from the equator, and is associated with lighter, more delicate flavours (think Spanish strawberries versus English ones). So northern French wines like Chablis tend towards the acid end, whereas in the south of France you get big rich reds, and Bordeaux in the middle has a balance between the two. Work out what you like and then think about geography when you're buying wine - all wine doesn't come from nowhere, it comes from a place, and that place influences how it tastes.

Branding - wine has its Audis and its Skodas, a similar level of quality wearing a different badge. In general, in the supermarket it's not worth paying for those "Audi" names you might have heard of like Bordeaux or Burgundy. But you can often play the game the other way, by looking for slightly unfashionable names, or grapes in the wrong place like that Pinot in the south of France, or Italian merlot. Don't go too weird, it doesn't mean you should be looking out for Uzbek Schonburger, but in general the market here is competitive enough that if there's two bottles with a £6 pricetag, then the less famous one will contain the better liquid.

Certainly in independent merchants, price is a reasonable guide to quality once you've adjusted for the "fame" effect. Supermarkets are more difficult, you need to get a feel for how their promotions work. In general anything Spanish is fair game - no-name Rioja is a particular favourite for fake discounting, but each chain has their own favourites. Sometimes the store-wide discounts can throw up some great deals, but if it's a deal on a specific brand/wine then the discount price is probably the fair price or at best maybe 50p less than fair price.

Best single tip - buy blends. Bordeaux and Champagne discovered a long time ago that different varieties generate complexity, which is generally regarded as a mark of quality. Sometimes as with eg colombard-chardonnay, a cheap bland wine is used to "stretch" a better wine to hit a pricepoint. But more often a blend of two or more varieties is just better than a single variety on its own. One of the best examples is putting 10-20% sauvignon blanc in a house white to give it some freshness and aroma. I won't buy single variety pinotage or sangiovese (the Chianti grape) except from the very best producers - in less skilled hands they tend towards 1-dimensional, but they have a real affinity for a bit of cabernet or merlot.

[deucetoace]

while German wine was a sick joke.

I'd have to argue with that.

What they mainly sold to us was a joke, but if you had a decent wine merchant who supplied proper estate produced wines, they were sublime.

Good traditional German wines are even harder to find on the street now and cost more as so much of their production has moved over to be an imitation of the chardonnay styles that seem to predominate in the white whine market.

Slarti

I rather like the German Trocken wines that you can now get & prefer them to the off dry Kabinetts. i think they are excellent value for money albeit the top end stuff is out of my price range but that is true for wines from most countries.

Deucetoace