So
PK and I are at a vertical tasting of some high-end Bordeaux (2013
through to 2010) and, all right, it's too early to tell in most cases
whether what I'm drinking is going to be an absolute steal at £50 a
bottle + six years of waiting; or whether it's going to start off
hysterically assertive and stay hysterically assertive; or whether
it's going to fizzle into nonentity. That said, all four years of the
Château le Crock (one of PK's personal favourites, you know) are
pretty finesse-rich, the 2010 already tasting - by a discernible
margin - better than nearly all the stuff I normally buy for myself.
Which
passes the time very pleasantly; also because we get a free
portion-controlled lunch in handsome surroundings (Somerset House).
And yet the question persists: what, in all honesty, am I doing here?
I am as likely to buy a Bordeaux Grand Cru as
I am to buy a gyrocopter, and, more to the point, I am not alone.
This piece has been echoing in my head for weeks, with its primary
assertion that most Brits will not pay more than £6 for a bottle of wine - while only seven per cent of British wine buyers are willing
to go over £10 a bottle. And
that nearly a third of male British wine drinkers are unable to name
a single grape variety.
There's
more. It chimes with this
news, that, despite our national obsession with TV food shows and
celebrity chefs and best-selling cookery books, we now spend half as
much time actually preparing real food as we did twenty years ago;
eating an increasing volume of ready-made and fast foods instead. The
behaviour of an entire media industry is predicated on the idea that
we love to get involved with flavourful, challenging meals (in one of yesterday's
free sheets on the train there were detailed instructions as to how
to make the perfect Bolognaise sauce, fully-engaged preparation time
something over three hours), an idea which is persistently and
rigorously contradicted by what we actually do.
Well,
we sort of know this, don't we? We're just made that way in the UK - food
slobs who happily and paradoxically live with a food fixation but
have no desire to do the hard work in the kitchen. Which is every bit
as true of wine. Thousands upon thousands of words are written every
week about wines, scores of recommendations are made - just about all
them, however sincerely-intentioned, coming in above the magic £6 a
bottle mark - quite often at twice that price; fairly often, more
than twice. But what do we do? Stick to our overpriced £6-and-less
crap wine, heat up a moussaka in a foil tray and carry on reading.
Or, in my case, go to the occasional smartyboots wine tasting before
returning home to the domestic fodder of potatoes and grog.
Where
does the locus of perversity lie? In us, for persistently indulging
fantasies which we could, just about, turn into reality, but won't?
Or in the fantasy-peddlers, who could, if they wanted, give us
authentic real-life information about how to get the best out of our
packet sandwiches and Aldi Shiraz, but set their faces ever towards
Fairyland, apparently unconcerned as the gap widens between what we
fill our culture with, and what we fill ourselves with?
I
try an analogy on PK: it's as if car writers only ever discussed
Bentleys and Mercs, leaving the Kias and Fords that people actually
bought, ignored, or spoken of merely to make a dismissive point of
comparison. PK says, no, it's not like that because the nature of the
transaction is so different. I carry on anyway, claiming that I would
like nothing more than a blow-by-blow account of when best to decant
my £2.99 Baron St Jean, and how to breathe life into a salad-in-a-bag
that's going black, but I am not making progress. I am even close to
announcing that our culture is fundamentally dysfunctional, but I can
see PK's eyes glazing with boredom, so I give up.
We
return to our out-on-day-release fantasy wine tasting. I feel a bit
dysfunctional myself by now, not least because these high-end
Bordeaux are so off my radar - however provocatively they price
themselves, a buyer will, ultimately and always, it seems, be found - and
wonder what my kids will make of it all.
'I
need a Sauternes to clear my palate,' PK says, daring to be
different.
We
have some. It's pretty nice. And what? Fifty quid a bottle?
Thirty-three ready-made sandwiches' worth of Sauternes?
'Not
bad,' I say, as if I really do this kind of thing.
CJ
You are spot on.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that...
ReplyDeleteI was going to add something about British wine makers but thought better of it...
Ha - very late to comment on this, but I too was at Somerset House for this orgy of self-indulgent drinking. Sorry, tasting.
ReplyDeletePersonal favourites were 2010s of La Mondotte and Pontet Canet, but having since looked at the price per bottle I did realise, once I'd been given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and regained consciousness, that's like - as you say - declaring I prefer a Rolls-Royce to a G-Wiz.
Better late than never!
Delete(And like the chap you'll always find in the kitchen at parties, PK is the man in the corner checking prices on Vinopedia while he's tasting, to put the wine into perspective, and avoid just such aftershock…)