The Dabbler’s wine correspondent Henry Jeffreys explains why rich people are fools and launches an occasional series offering tips on how you can buy very good wine without breaking the bank…
Money is wasted on the rich. When I see footballers driving their identical Bentley Continentals I think how much better I could have spent the money; perhaps a Jenson Interceptor and a man to fix it every now and then. It’s the same with wine. In those stories that one reads in the papers about bankers blowing money in restaurants or read about celebrity wine cellars the same names always come up: Cheval Blanc, Mouton Rothschild, something overpriced and Californian – yawnorama! Philosopher and wine enthusiast Roger Scruton in his book I Drink, Therefore I Am has this to say about such people:
The world is full of people who are both very rich and very stupid, who can be relied upon to spend virtually unlimited sums of money on products about which they know nothing except that other people as rich and stupid as themselves are spending unlimited sums of money on them.
Quite so, Roger! But we shouldn’t be so hard on the poor rich. Wine is a complicated business and they are, like most consumers, just looking for the certainty of a well-known brand. Penfold’s Grange (£200 a bottle depending on vintage) is the oligarch’s answer to Hardy’s Shiraz (£5.99 from the Turkish shop on Cambridge Heath Road.)
The ignorance of the rich is great news for the dabbler prepared to put in a little research. Because the rich focus on a few well-known names, most good wine is actually underpriced. You just have to find it. In a series of posts I am going to suggest tips for the canny booze enthusiast.
My first port of call is the greatest hunting ground of all – the Languedoc. This enormous area in the South of France produces more wine than Australia. Most of it isn’t very good but the stuff that does make it over here tends to be excellent and because it has no reputation it also tends to be cheap. If you visit a reputable wine merchant in the UK and buy a wine from this region for between £8 and £10 you will not be disappointed. Here are couple of my recent favourites:
Faugères, les Maurels, Domaine de Trinites 2007 – £9.99 http://www.ellisofrichmond.co.uk/ A blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mouverdre from one of the best appellations within the Languedoc. This is a perfectly-balanced red with a rare freshness about it. Give this to someone raised on Australian Shiraz and they will never go back.
St Chinian, 2008 Col d’Arribat, Cave de Roquebrun – £9.75
St. Chinian Roquebrun, www.jeroboams.co.uk – from the town next door to Faugeres. One of the cliches of writing about the Languedoc is saying that they taste of the Garrigue – local scrubland that smells of herbs in the spring – but this one really does. You won’t need to add rosemary to your roast lamb.
Thus The Dabbler makes all our lives just a little bit better…
The languedoc has seen a massive shift in quality over the last few years – mostly I think because the vineyards there use modern production techniques and are unfettered with the weight of the past like many of the bordeaux and burgundy houses, so were able to quickly react to the threat from the new world producers and adapt accordingly. I’ve had loads of great Languedoc wines lately
I think you’re right Mr Worm. There is a very unFrench excitement about the possibilties of the place but with a very French reverence for the land. What was interesting was going to a vineyard in California in 2009 and they were trying to get their wines to taste more Languedocian. Something you could not have imagined anyone doing 20 years ago.
What an excellent idea. Tautavel? Is that from there? Earthy but fruity, a bit like a light Rioja – delicious, interesting and great value.
Well, what a pleasure – a thrill even. Judge Jeffreys sounds like my sort of man – and I’ve just been over to World of Booze and nearly died laughing, the keyboard is soaked. Better still, I’ve actually picked up some splendid tips on wine buying a subject, both in restaurants and Oddbins, that runs my blood cold. Drinking it – wonderful: selecting it – the horrors (‘I’ll have that one, the label is rather fine, and the cork looks like cork’). Request Ed – can we get the hanging judge to the next dabbler summit, and can we hold it next week?