Whines about wine

Now I’ll be the first to admit I am no Oz Clarke, thank God, but the current state of the wine market leaves me a little, erm – off. Admittedly I am basing my criticism on the weekly shop at Tesco – but as they now claim to be the nation’s biggest wine merchant, maybe the multinational dross on offer truly reflects the market.

My first gripe about grapes is the sheer volume of wine from faraway places. There is a perfectly good producer of wine just the other side of the channel – but amazingly Tesco feel the need to stock more wine from the antipodes than they do from France.

The rubbish on offer from the USA and South America also defies belief. In an era when the entire world, let alone the Tesco shopper is being conned into thinking carbon footprints are important, the number of air miles owned by the average wine bottle is quite staggering.

But the thing which really gets my goat is the way wines are labelled by grape variety – as though this means it will taste exactly the same every time – whether it comes from Argentina, Chile, New Zealand – or some drought-stricken part of Australia.

Behind this con lies the rather unpalatable truth that wine is being made on an industrial scale by the same methods the world over. Which to me is a bit of a shame.

I am not overly enthusiastic about many things French, but their supreme Gallic indifference to the one-size-fits-all approach of latter-day wine-making definitely gets my thumbs up. Call me old-fashioned, but if I really want an oak-aged red – then it is rather nice to have had it actually aged in oak, rather than have a few over-sized teabags of oak chippings added.

And I see nothing wrong in getting to know certain areas and vintages.

Worst of all is the abomination of what passes for Rosé in the summer. Vile, sickly concoctions with euphemisms like ‘blush’ come nowhere near approximating even a half decent French Rosé – so why are they thrust at us from the supermarket shelves?

The old chestnut is that suppliers are only providing what people are prepared to buy – but that is just rubbish. They are stocking what they can get the most profit on.

Buying intoFrench Life

Once again a myriad of magazines have appeared in Rob Towers on the joys of living in France.  And fuelling the Gallic myth really does appear to be a large and saturated market.  Living in France, French Life, France, French Property News and several others help ensure you have plenty to read over your croissants and coffee on a Sunday morning.

And it certainly appears to be a wondrous lifestyle over there.  Why is it that moving house in this country – or getting the builders in can be guaranteed to be stressful horror story.  All I remember are relentlessly ghastly experiences, far more painful than having your wisdom teeth extracted without anaesthetic.  So how come moving abroad and doing up a dump is such a joy?

Call me a cynic but I would quite enjoy reading about people’s misery being stuck in a rural idyll, miles from civilisation when the lights went out – or a pipe burst.   Or even some latter day ex-pat crisis like the Sky television dish went on the blink so you couldn’t keep up with Neighbours any more.  But these things never seem to happen

 And the French idyll doesn’t stop at magazines stuffed full with overly gushing hyperbole about every village town and region that France has to offer.  There are adverts for every conceivable service – including I was rather pleased to see, Humm-Busters, who will be delighted to help you overcome that overpowering stink of je ne sais quoi emanating from the septic tank. 

Turning your Gallic dream into nightmare reality seems to be remarkably easy.  It doesn’t matter where you end up – everything everywhere is wonderful.  If you ever wondered what happened to those useless estate agents that disappeared from your high street then fear not.  They appear to be alive and well and ripping people off in France. 

Even the banks are in on the act.  You get far more than a cash dispenser when you join some of the French banks.  They offer mortgages, insurance, telephone and internet services and can even exchange your money in something called a café.  All in English, all on-line. 

The funny thing is I have fallen for all this baloney hook, line and sinker.  Once again this month I am off to France to sit by the pool, get pissed on excellent local wine and get fat on tasty local produce.

The reality is of course that the local boulangerie and bar will be closed; every house for miles around will be full of rowdy Brits and other drunken holiday makers.  The books I find in the rented house will be rubbish; the 5 minute walk to the local shop will be a twenty minute drive.  And yes, the septic tank will indeed stink.  But who cares – it’s better than working.