Not the good old days
Sir: Alan Watkins (Wine and food, 13 July) is puzzled that he was able to drink Chablis, Vosne-Romande and other such bur- gundies for strangely little money at El Vino in the mid-Fifties. In reality these Were not quite the halcyon days he likes to recall.
First, such wines, then sold by the glass in Fleet Street and the City, were often palat- able enough but they were usually blended
wines for the English market, say of 'Chablis-style' etc. Only a few specialist shippers such as Avery's of Bristol then shipped the more expensive 'real McCoy'. One of the boons of EU membership is that wine-lovers in the United Kingdom have now full AC protection when they buy these labels and the soi-disant London-bot- tled burgundies are a thing of the past. Second, the £2 that he cites for a costly round of drinks then is something like £25 in modern money which would certainly buy a young Lunchtime O'Booze of today four glasses of good AC Chablis.
S.J. Noble
Loch Fyne Oysters Ltd,
Clachan Farm,
Cairndmy, Argyll
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