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Verse and Worse

* This and the two following sections were compiled with the aid of my friend Christopher Leaver.

WINE SHOPPER’S GUIDE

IN CHOOSING YOUR wine, whether from a supplier’s price-list or in a restaurant, the obvious temptation is to go for a name you recognize. You would not recognize it unless it had a long reputation for quality; but such reputations set prices rising, and unfamiliar names may well bring you better value for money. As regards home drinking, faith in your wine merchant’s recommendations will bring you that value and also provide you with interesting variety. In the restaurant, a good policy is to forget names, labels and vintages and go for a wine imported by a shipper whose wares you have enjoyed in the past. This brings up a general point of some importance.

Two bottles of a wine of the same year and from the same district will not necessarily taste the same. Soils can vary from one side of the road to the other; the vines on a southern slope will get more sun than those on a northern; M. Crapaud’s processes may differ from M. Grenouille’s. This becomes particularly noticeable in a large area like Beaune in Burgundy.*

Shippers’ methods differ too. One well-known firm matures its Meursault (a—usually—white burgundy from a sub-district within Beaune) in cask for three years before bottling; others bottle after two or even one. This is where your wine merchant comes in: he will know how individual shippers handle their wine, and will guide you to the one(s) who suit(s) your taste. (Shop salesmen are rarely much good for this kind of help, though their knowledge is, by and large, increasing.) Finally, have no fear of non-vintage “house” vins ordinaires labelled simply Red Bordeaux (etc.). They are nearly always better than all right, and excellent value.

Now to the wines of individual regions.

1. BORDEAUX. Reds (clarets). Here you have a couple of hundred different names to cope with, if you feel you must cope. One you recognize does carry with it a sort of guarantee: nowadays, the well-known châteaux can, by blending, offer a vintage every year regardless, and are too careful of their reputation to produce any bad wine under their label. But, as suggested earlier, you will to some extent be paying for the name. For better value for money, look for wines from these three districts: Côtes de Bourg, Côtes de Blaye and Côtes de Fronsac. They will be of a recent year, but never mind: they mature fast. 75p to £1 retail.* You will almost certainly have to pay much more than that for something good under more familiar names like Médoc or St Emilion.

Whites—specifically sweet whites. These can be first-rate value. Non-vintage Sauternes and Barsacs at 80–90p are delicious with fruit (or cheese) and for lingering over at the end of a meal. If you have more to spend and fancy something really luscious and fruity, you can get château-bottled* wines like Château Climens or Château Rieussec for £1.50 or less.

2. BURGUNDY. Wines with Burgundian village names, such as Pommard, Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle Musigny or Vosne Romanée, are becoming dearer and dearer and less and less value for money. It is even hard to find genuine examples of them, unless they are bottled by a highly reputable shipper, by your own wine merchant, or, best of all, at the do-maine—which is to burgundy as château is to Bordeaux wines. The better-known names, like Nuits St Georges, are starting to disappear from merchants’ lists; supply cannot meet demand, prices have shot up, and the “stretching” (=adulterating) of wines in the recent past has led to a virtual insistence on the growers’ part that their product be bottled on the spot: more lowering of supply and increase in price. The answer is to look for less famous names, such as Givry, Fixin, Mercurey and Monthélie. These are ready to drink within four years of the vintage. In general, drink neither reds nor whites too old—ten years old is too old—and, as before, remember shippers’ names.

Whatever I may have said elsewhere, the dry white