THE GOOD LIFE Pamela VANDYKE PRICE
By now the phrase 'Do ring me up sometime' definitely means, in current English (as opposed to American) usage, 'Don't let me hear from you again.' So I think that 'Of course I'd love to know about wine but I simply haven't got the time,' is to be accepted as signifying 'I enjoy knocking it back but I can't be bothered to learn the names.' The 'haven't got the time' excuse was considered the deadliest insult in my pre-permissive youth, even 'letters to write' having more elegance in the ultimate brush- off. Because for what one really wants one always has the time.
Now there are several first-rate paperbacks written about wine, many excellent books, and torrents of prose, of varying quality, pour from the presses, both glossy and newsprint. John Harvey produce an admirable miniature Guide to Wine, which they supply free. Therefore it was a surprise to me to be told that, when questioned, the Consumers' Association members affirmed via questionnaire that they wanted information. They have got this in the Which? Good Drink Guide (20s), in which the opinions of members of the wine trade (who hate the term `experts' as much as anyone serious in their studies) and a lay panel reported on castings of wines and spirits. The table wines all cost under or around 20s per bottle and the two things evident from the findings are that the often- maligned 'big business' of the wine trade actually offers good wines for sale, and that, too, the individual wine 'merchants of the Lac are still our glory in the world, picking the individual quality wines of interest and value. Lucky us.
The book, illustrated by pictures of a youngish pseudo-trendy couple who eventually collapse (really, one would have thought that hangovers, even avoidance of same might have been panelised too) reaches no conclusions about sparkling wines—I can't make out why. They merely list a number as 'tasted'. It is stated that the professionals 'had limited experience' of sweet sherry—over 75 per cent of the sherry drunk in the UK is definitely sweet—and therefore a lay panel were relied on. Well, I made my own tasting crowd taste thirteen recently, even though it did make me feel that my flat was contained inside a huge Christmas trifle, and I don't see why one can't separate what one personally likes and what one thinks is good, irrespective of experience. The findings are fun, but the requested information about wine in general is—well—peculiar, and I wouldn't like to believe that it had the approval of any sober member of the wine trade; it certainly doesn't have mine. There are statements about grapes and blending that can only be described as foolish. Get your facts from other sources.
And really, so much of what is implied in this book is obvious if one thinks practically: you cannot buy cheaply what is essentially expensive—in other words, if you expect a genuine and good Chablis for 12s 6d
a bottle, and ditto Beaujolais for 13s, you won't get them. You won't, because they can't be produced at that price. You may get a fairly decent wine—but it shouldn't bear a label carrying either of these classic names.
Ultimately in wine, as in life, you get what you pay for. As I can't imagine anything more tedious than fixing one's preferences for ever on one or two wines, love of any wine should be the supreme incentive for continually trying others. In Britain, thank goodness, our buys are more likely to be good, however random, rather than bad—if we have the sense to read even five hundred words of advice before we bang down our hundred new pence.
However, you will assist your enjoyment of any bottle, whether costing 15s or a fiver, if certain simple habits become standard with you. Wine glasses, for example, should never be stored upside down. This shuts the air inside them, this itself becomes stale, and the wood, shelf paper or whatever the glass rests on may impart its flavour to the glass as well. I've endured many a classed growth impregnated with the aroma of paint! Keep glasses right side up or, ideally, hung upside- down but free of the shelf, as in the racks used in many tasting rooms.
Cloths used for wiping or polishing wine glasses should be linen and they shouldn't be used for drying the dishes, swabbing the sink, mopping up the spills on the stove, patting dry the dog, or wiping the fevered brow after dinner is served. All these exercises will impart a smell to the cloth and this may come off on the glass. If you must wash your glass cloths in soap or detergent—I simply boil mine—then rinse them at least twice as thoroughly as you consider necessary. Detergent makes glasses stink, turns champagne a nasty pink and is responsible for many bottles being returned as 'off' when it's the inadequacies of the washing machine or the cook's assistant that should be blamed. Some of my wine trade friends do put their Baccarat glasses in the washing-up machine, but I don't think I'd risk it, even if I had one; yes, it's utterly boring drying several dozen glasses after a dinner (especially as, in London's foul atmosphere, I'll usually have to wash and polish them all again before the next party) but it's better than a smash costing anything from 30s' per glass or a taint on a historic wine.
Does it really matter? Well, twelve years ago I rejected a Beaujolais in France 'because it smells of hospitals'. My host, sniffing my glass, said 'Lint!' and it was the drying cloth. And a few months ago, at a great London restaurant, with the greatest independent wine merchant, several of whose Burgundies we were sampling, both of us noticed a vague 'something' that we didn't like. Was it madam's glass? Well, the replacement wasn't much better. Were the glasses washed and thoroughly rinsed? Of course—and, said the concerned and conscientious sommelier, they were polished after the machine had blown them dry. And what were the drying cloths like? So he went and fetched them—and they reeked. Because they'd been boiled up with all the other drying cloths. After which we all used our clean 'blowing' " handkerchiefs, without which no sensible person goes to a party, and Ronald Avery's impeccable wines shone to full glory. We noticed and I bet other people would do so. Do you make love wearing dirty gloves? That's the effect a smelly glass has on a fine wine. None of us should ever risk it,
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