Wine

Wine – traditionally the province of the ruling classes: the drink of the upper crust. Dusty vintages; well-stocked cellars; unctuous sommeliers deferentially drawing corks. An elitist drink, it was only enjoyed by plebs in the vinegary imitation form known as plonk. All of that used to be true. From the mid 16th century until very recently, wine in its real form was – in the UK, at least – very much a preserve of aristocrats and landed gentry, managing huge caves (wine cellars) populated with bottles that were worth more than a peasant’s house. These legendary vintages were consumed recklessly and in quantity right up until the Edwardian time preceding the First World War: a gentleman going to his Club would be presented with a wine list that would make Oz Clarke drool, while your average working Joe had to content himself with a bottle of mild and a cheese sandwich. The availability of top-quality food and drink has changed dramatically over the last 50 years: however, it’s still only recently that wine has been allowed to “climb down” from its rather forced position as the aristocrat of the drinks world. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a cultural revolution in the kitchen (and cellar), whereby normal, average-earning folk started to reclaim items previously seen as delicacies beyond their reach. Some pretty awful things (prawn cocktail presented in half-shells of avocado springs to mind) made this jump. Wine, and good wine at that, was one of the last (and best) items to cross the line. Gone, suddenly, were the days of Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun: ordinary, everyday consumers were being presented with real wine choices, different grapes and styles and even vintages. Supermarket aisles bulged with wine previously seen only in restaurants. Chilean wine, French wine, Spanish wine, New World wine: the list was (and is) endless. The quality wasn’t short either. Compared to the vinous horrors of the 1970s and before, “modern” wine was a delight – warm and full-bodied, crisp and light, fruity and complex. Real flavours, rather than just varying degrees of vinegar. Cleverly marketed flavours with bottles and labels recalling the old class-distinctions of wine: labels that made consumers feel that they were buying into a climbing social status. In short, wine was suddenly a lot better and a lot more available than it had been in the UK for hundreds of years. All to the good, one might think: and up to a point, one would be right. The sheer variety and general decency of wine in 21st century Britain spoils us as we haven’t been spoiled since the first monk put the first grape in the first wine press. What’s missing, currently, is a level of quality. The wine available in Britain is very good, but in the mid ranges it’s still overpriced compared to similar European bottles. In France, for example, a person can get a bottle of wine that, by UK pricing standards (even factoring in the terrible Euro-GBP exchange rate), ought to cost £20, for around a fiver. The reason: France never went through a 500 year period of wine discrimination. Wine in France has always been the drink of the masses – wine of a quality that would easily make the wine lists of even the best restaurants in a UK town. Perhaps, with luck, our own wine revolution will continue to the point where even the best European vintages are affordable.

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