Election gripes
111 I WAS intending to write about old sherry this month, but the Tories changed all that. The story which ended with Norman Teb- bit humourlessly preventing me from be- coming a television personality began a few weeks ago when a dynamic new 24-hour paper asked me to help with a 'light- hearted' piece on party political wines. Three of the four parties, it transpired, were busily selling wine to help defray the cost of the election. • The first surprise was that the party most closely associated in the public mind with wine was the only one not selling the stuff. `We sell policies,' a rather supercilious SDP spokesman commented.
The second surprise, for some at least, was that the most enterprising of the party wine-selling campaigns was being con- ducted from Walworth Road. The Labour Party were eager to release samples of their Rose Label wines, which turned out to have informative back labels printed in pink and prettily embellished with the sign of the rose. The Liberal wines were stodgi- ly presented with labels which simply said `National Liberal Club Red and White': nothing to stir the imagination or excite the taste-buds there. The Tory wine was the only one which gave no indication that it had political connections. When it came to the tasting, Labour continued to excel. Their white offering was an excellent estate-bottled Muscadet sur Lie, full of verve and freshness. The back label told us that this was an organic wine (is there any such thing as a non-organic wine?), free from harmful additives; it also came in a green bottle. I quibbled slightly over the price, £47.88 a case, but to be fair there are more expensive Muscadets on the market, some of them greatly inferior to this. Labour's only aberration was their rosé, a lipstick-coloured non-vintage wine from a co-operative in Carifiena tasting like straw- berry jam. Acceptable at £1.80 a bottle, say, this was grossly overprices at £39.48 a case. Labour were back in form, though, with an imaginatively chosen Loire red, a 1985 Cabernet de Touraine, also from a co-operative: with its beautifully vivid col- our and intense, grassy nose this was Cabernat Franc at its most typical, and by no means over-priced at £39.48 a case.
How dull the Liberal wines, admittedly less expensive, were in comparison! The white yin de table was clean and neutral, but completely lacking in character and individuality; a disgrace at £2.75 a bottle, when there are so many interesting wines available at that price. The red, also at £2.75, had more character, but of a rough and fairly unpleasant kind. The rasping finish brought back memories of the bitter ends of student bring-a-bottle parties. I had high hopes at first for the (single) Tory wine, a 1983 Cotes de Roussillon Villages. It had an excellent, long cork, which reflected faith in its aging potential. Its colour was a rich crimson. On the nose there was a suggestion of ripe plums, but also, heaven forbid, of maderisation. On the palate there could be no doubt about it this rich southern wine was over the hill.
The piece duly appeared and seemed to have only a minor influence on the polls (though Labour's spirited rally began around that time). A few days ago, a producer on BBC Breakfast Time asked me if I would agree to repeat the tasting.
After discussion with my more fashion- conscious flatmate, I decided on a loose- fitting Fifties suit and a discreet bow-tie — shades of Sir Robin, true hero of election '87, but also convenient for spitting. But on arrival at the appointed venue, I had my hopes of fame rudely shattered. The tast- ing had been called off.
Over a pleasant, if understandably low- key, lunch (on him) the producer told me more. The director of Blue Rosette, the Tory mail-order operation, refused to par- ticipate. He said this had nothing to do with the adverse comments in the article, it was simply that he didn't want to trivialise important issues at stake in the election.
Of course, this was my producer's job, and he looked more put-upon than Nor- man Tebbit, Bryan Gould and even the two Davids combined. 'You wouldn't be- lieve how much hassle it involves putting these three-minute funny items together. Yesterday I had to find this woman who grows red roses in Lewisham — that took hours. Tomorrow it's some f....ing bulldog breeder. I used to do proper, full-length reports. I did a 35-minute one last year.
`What was that on?'
`Hendon aerodrome. That was really interesting.'
I poured him another glass of wine, not Tory, Labour or Liberal wine, just wine.
Ausonius
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