GuytheGrape

The positive vibe around 2018 got me to thinking about  the word vintage.  Its literal meaning  is the wine of a single year as opposed to a blend of various harvests. This is how we use it in the trade but, it also has a positive connotation as being applied to something of exceptional quality.  Largely this comes from wines like Champagne and Port where the regular products are blends and traditionally they only made wine from a single vintage in the really good years.  One thing that you do see is that when you get a really great vintage in one place, news spreads and people assume that it applies to all regions.   When I first started in the  business we were selling the truly wonderful 1982 Bordeaux  and on the back of it, demand for 1982 Burgundy increased despite them making pretty thin and dilute wines. In hot countries there is less variation in climate and so less variation between vintages and there’s a case for saying that due to g...

  Snobs and Bores. Snob noun a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people. Bore noun one that causes weariness and restlessness through lack of interest  :  one that causes  boredom : such as a dull or tiresome person There’s nothing worse than a wine snob unless, it’s a wine bore. The difficulty is, I think I may be one of them. I’m generally pretty happy with a glass of anything made from fermented grapes. It could be a nice cold  Wolf Blass Chardonnay costing six quid in Tescos  or a poncey Bordeaux Chateau that’s been lovingly stored for a decade just waiting for the perfect moment to be poured. The only thing that matters is that it’s a good drink. My problem ( lies on couch and stares at the ink blot on the wall) is that having spent a quarter of a century buying, selling and making the stuff, I have retained an abnormally large amount of information about booze with the e...