Sot,- -If Leslie Adrian chooses to call it 'The Battle
of the Bottle,' I am quite willing to join. His account of atrocities to wine makes pathetic reading, Und I would not question its veracity. However, it is a long way from proving his original assertion that all restaurants in Britain, with the exception of fewer than a dozen in London (led by the ad- mirable Wolfe's), are guilty of similar misdeeds. All his sad experiences can prove is his unfortunate choice in the restaurants he patronises. In my letter I have not tried to whitewash the offenders, on the contrary I freely admitted the existence of a few 'black sheep.' On the other hand, I deplore the sweeping condemnation of a perfectly respectable group of people, the restaurateurs and sommeliers of Britain, who give good service generally.
The absurdity of Leslie Adrian's allegations be- comes evident if we consider that in London alone the Guild of Sommeliers has between 450 and 500 active members. Regular monthly tastings, lectures and discussions have a steady audience, sometimes as many as 150 members attending. Chichi and wine-snobbery is to be discouraged and it is silly and pretentious to expect a sommelier to ko through the motions of serving a château-bottled old claret when only a bottle of 'ordinary' or, to use LA's term, 'plonk,' has been ordered.
Leslie Adrian's image as a wine expert is rather blurred by his reference in your last issue (October 16) to branded corks. Considering that only 4 per cent of the wine consumed in this country is shipped in bottle, to apply his 'crucial test' Would not only be ludicrous, pompous hocus-pocus, but impossible in twenty-four cases out of twenty-five.
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