The season is upon us when wine-drinkers of slender means
find themselves exposed to the dangers of sulphur dioxide. This versatile chemi- cal plays an important, nay vital, r8le in the 'improvement' of inferior white wines. Cheap reds have a chemical constitution that renders them more stable and usually much less acid than cheap whites. The booming wine business in Britain has attracted a variety of hitherto little-known wines, and some of them should be approached with caution, not because you may be poisoned, but because you are certain to be disappointed and in some cases dyspeptic.
Rather than attempt to nominate the scound- rels who compound wines that do nothing but disgrace the label affixed to their bottle, I
thought it might be a good idea to draw atten- tion to some of the sounder examples, a number of them recently put on parade at the Orange Street cellars of Peter Dominic. The biggest bargain of all seems to be Janos Riesling from Hungary (which Dominic sells at 9s. 3d.), and there is a group of reasonable Yugoslav Rieslings that cost 3d. or 6d. more Incidentally, I don't say that SO2 has played no part at all in their production. Wine-makers need its pre- servative and stabilising qualities too much to neglect it completely. It is the crude vigneron (if he deserves the title) who over-uses sulphur to make up for his lack of skill upon whom I would vent my wrath.
But briefly: Bulgarian Rita Chardonnay (10s. 9d.) is worth trying, though not at all like a Chardonnay product; Tirnave Riesling from Rumania costs 10s. 3d., Zilavka from Yugoslavia 11s., and the Swiss version of an Alsatian Chasselas, Pierreafeu, Fendant de Valais, also seems good value at 12s. to 13s., though its Alsatian equivalent costs a shilling or two less. Since resale price maintenance vanished there are variations of a shilling or so is many of these prices.
Previous page
