I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
This is a big deal in part because Streeting is extremely politically astute. He's a very reliable indicator of the way the wind is blowing. Well bloody done to all the women who've got things here, keep going!
I think probably Labour’s next leader, unless they take a big change of direction.
Can a wind vane be a leader?
The current one is.....
Sunak? Sadly I think he actually believes some of the shit he spouts.
So Keir's a Tory?
Keir is probably right of Ted Heath and Ken Clarke on his current policy positions, even if not quite as right as Blair was
Objectively I don’t think so. We’ve moved left economically as a nation in the intervening years, and left socially too. The one area we’ve moved sharply to the right is on nationalism.
What does moving left socially mean? It's not necessarily the same thing as becoming more libertarian.
Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it.
He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation. Not even very convincingly in my view as I think his views of the nation and the flag are the same as Emily Thornberry's; he just wants to win so he's playing the role he needs to.
Meanwhile, he's actually got several leftwing policies he's already chalked up in his embryonic manifesto, which people seem quite happy to dismiss or ignore.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
This is a big deal in part because Streeting is extremely politically astute. He's a very reliable indicator of the way the wind is blowing. Well bloody done to all the women who've got things here, keep going!
I think probably Labour’s next leader, unless they take a big change of direction.
Can a wind vane be a leader?
The current one is.....
Sunak? Sadly I think he actually believes some of the shit he spouts.
So Keir's a Tory?
Keir is probably right of Ted Heath and Ken Clarke on his current policy positions, even if not quite as right as Blair was
Objectively I don’t think so. We’ve moved left economically as a nation in the intervening years, and left socially too. The one area we’ve moved sharply to the right is on nationalism.
What does moving left socially mean? It's not necessarily the same thing as becoming more libertarian.
Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it.
He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation. Not even very convincingly in my view as I think his views of the nation and the flag are the same as Emily Thornberry's; he just wants to win so he's playing the role he needs to.
Meanwhile, he's actually got several leftwing policies he's already chalked up in his embryonic manifesto, which people seem quite happy to dismiss or ignore.
He is no Tony Blair.
The BJO tendency provide him with a huge smokescreen.
What do you think of the local authority planning powers policy ?
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
Incredible chart from @jburnmurdoch in @FT which shows how extraordinary the UK’s climate consensus is. Working in an organisation that looks at polarisation in different countries I get to see how despite our problems, we’re relatively far less polarised. on.ft.com/3Dxxy1F
It doesn’t look extraordinary at all. I’m fact, it’s not even the smallest gap in two of the three questions.
Doesn't look like much enthusiasm in France or Germany for banning new petrol and diesel cars after 2030, nor from Republican US voters there. US voters not keen on taxing flights either but general consensus in western nations for increasing investment in renewables
Calling it 'investment' - which it is not, is distorting that result.
No it isn't. Your animus against renewables distorts your analysis.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
We need some red in tooth and claw politics as soon as possible because the comments section of this site is turning into a 6Music Dad Facebook entropic death spiral.
Why don’t you tell us about the dual, underslung, manifold titanium-plastic 280db X 5::3 CSQ hyper-exhaust system you’ve just installed on your 1988 Triumph-Smythe (KV33) after 6.4 days alone in your man-shed?
That should liven things up, and inject some real politics
On topic, isn't the Uxbridge result down to the fact that the Labour Party are very poor at fighting by-elections? They should have anticipated the ULEZ problem but even if they had not anticipated it should have rebutted it quickly - a leaflet blaming Grant Shapps perhaps.
Just had an excellent email from the Lib Dems including a heat map of the issues in Somerton and Frome (GP appointments came top). If Labour had done similar research in Uxbridge before the election was announced (and they had long enough notice) ULEZ would have come up.
It has been suggested that the savvy Labour Party managers have all left to work for the Greens who if they take 5% at the GE are going to mean that the Tories hold on to many more seats than they otherwise would have done without them.
GOP pres. candidate @WillHurd tells IA GOP that Donald Trump is not running to make America great again:“ Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” which prompted gasps, boos & a smattering of applause from the Iowa GOP audience.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek are made to a price point.
At that price point they dominate - because the low end French wine at the equivalent price point is not as good.
Yeah, you can drink better. By going to the vineyard and negotiating I can get a bottle of a Premier Cru Chablis for less than a bottle of Jacobs Creek. At the cost of travelling across France and a weeks holiday…
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
I was hoping to defer putting fuel into the car until next month, but I'm not sure how close I want to push it. I'm feeling a little frustrated this morning too.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
We need some red in tooth and claw politics as soon as possible because the comments section of this site is turning into a 6Music Dad Facebook entropic death spiral.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
I got quite sunburnt at Latitude vertical last weekend, though Saturday was pretty wet, but not a great summer because it rained on St Swihins day. Nothing new in British weather.
Sophie Ellis Bextor has aged well, for the 6 Music Dads:
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
O/T but especially for @JosiasJessop some new listings by Historic England in the Bristol Docks - notably adjustment of the Brunelian swingbridge that has been sitting at the entrance almost forgotten until recent work.
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
The south and Galle is best in winter, IIRC. Perfect blue skies
Further north and the highlands it gets quirkier
A surprising amount of variation for a fairly tiny island
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
I was hoping to defer putting fuel into the car until next month, but I'm not sure how close I want to push it. I'm feeling a little frustrated this morning too.
Any petty grievances for yourself this morning?
My primary petty grievance is the absolute state of the weather on our summer holiday. And on the subject of British summer holidays, people referring to them as Staycations is also pretty annoying.
Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 @MichaelRosenYes 7/ Meanwhile, as the actors' strike is telling us, it can't be long before we could go to a movie about a long-dead guy like Oppenheimer and AI has reconstructed him from photos and film of the time. Oppenheimer played by Oppenheimer!
Missing dr who scenes reconstructed from John Cura telesnaps
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
The south and Galle is best in winter, IIRC. Perfect blue skies
Further north and the highlands it gets quirkier
A surprising amount of variation for a fairly tiny island
Yes huge variation - entirely different monsoons in different parts of the country, a dry zone, hilly areas where it gets cold at night... It's incredibly varied, I can't imagine ever getting tired of it. Hopefully we'll spend a lot of time there in retirement.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
Bit much for HMG to complain about banks trawling social media to get rid of people they don't want as customers, when they do it themselves for people they don't want ...
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
I'm totally with you on that - I think it's ghastly stuff.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
Bit much for HMG to complain about banks trawling social media to get rid of people they don't want as customers, when they do it themselves for people they don't want ...
A government that includes Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps is full of stupid hypocrites?
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
"Keir's strategy is working given so many people are taken in by it. He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation."
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
Good point by Michael Vaughan: Bazball ought to be dialled down a bit in order to give the England bowlers time to rest after a long day in the field yesterday.
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
Sri Lanka, both wetter and sunnier than Cornwall on average.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
If they are sacked, they will be given better, more responsible jobs. See Rotherham.
This is why I plan to recruit the entire department to participate in the New British Space Program. Make! Britain! Great! Again!
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I once had dinner with the guy who invented Jacob’s Creek. Literally came up with the idea and the brand. It was in a very high end restaurant on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. Unsurprisingly he is now mega wealthy
He said - with a chuckle - “I like to think of it as the longest creek in the world”. He was satirising his own product. It is produced on an industrial scale
But it is absolutely drinkable. Even now when it has been superseded by 1000 other wines (often copying the method). If you’re stuck: It will do
As for your Carrefour example, I wouldn’t know. I would literally NEVER drink a bottle of wine from Carrefour that cost “€3-5”
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
If they are sacked, they will be given better, more responsible jobs. See Rotherham.
This is why I plan to recruit the entire department to participate in the New British Space Program. Make! Britain! Great! Again!
I hope Jacob Rees-Mogg is made an honorary DfE civil servant for this purpose?
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I wouldn't go that far, I have had some quite poor French reds over the years.
The Australians did clear a lot of bullshit with their straightforward approach to wine marketing, with single varietal ready to drink fruity wines that need no ageing and have plenty of alcohol. Australian Chardonnay was the Liebfraumilch of the Nineties.
Things have got slightly more sophisticated since in Australia, but in general people want cheap fruity wines, and it is good business to give them what they want.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I once had dinner with the guy who invented Jacob’s Creek. Literally came up with the idea and the brand. It was in a very high end restaurant on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. Unsurprisingly he is now mega wealthy
He said - with a chuckle - “I like to think of it as the longest creek in the world”. He was satirising his own product. It is produced on an industrial scale
But it is absolutely drinkable. Even now when it has been superseded by 1000 other wines (often copying the method). If you’re stuck: It will do
It has the seal of approval from the great Father Jack:
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
Bit much for HMG to complain about banks trawling social media to get rid of people they don't want as customers, when they do it themselves for people they don't want ...
A government that includes Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps is full of stupid hypocrites?
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Well that post puts you on the naughty list.
JRM is most likely cancelling your bank account as I write
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
Bit much for HMG to complain about banks trawling social media to get rid of people they don't want as customers, when they do it themselves for people they don't want ...
A government that includes Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps is full of stupid hypocrites?
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Well that post puts you on the naughty list.
JRM is most likely cancelling your bank account as I write
I do hope so, because then I can sue him, make a fortune and retire.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
Good point by Michael Vaughan: Bazball ought to be dialled down a bit in order to give the England bowlers time to rest after a long day in the field yesterday.
Here's how the match proceeded wicket by wicket
Eng +13 Aus +25 Aus +42 Eng +57 Eng +42 Eng +38 Eng +27 Eng +27 Aus +22 Aus +18 Aus +12
Australia bowled better than us but our fielding was superior. Both teams had 4 single figure innings, though you could argue without Labuschagne's 9 from 2 balls England would likely have dismissed Murphy and Cummins quicker than they did because they wouldn't be so knackered. Both the spinners got the same score, but Murphy will be able to bowl 2nd innings whereas Moeen won't.
England's 78.1 overs on a non rain affected second day must be approaching the lowest ever in a day where i) Only 1 side batted and 1 bowled ii) There were no rain or bad light breaks iii) There was no major injury to anyone.
Good point by Michael Vaughan: Bazball ought to be dialled down a bit in order to give the England bowlers time to rest after a long day in the field yesterday.
Here's how the match proceeded wicket by wicket
Eng +13 Aus +25 Aus +42 Eng +57 Eng +42 Eng +38 Eng +27 Eng +27 Aus +22 Aus +18 Aus +12
Australia bowled better than us but our fielding was superior. Both teams had 4 single figure innings, though you could argue without Labuschagne's 9 from 2 balls England would likely have dismissed Murphy and Cummins quicker than they did because they wouldn't be so knackered. Both the spinners got the same score, but Murphy will be able to bowl 2nd innings whereas Moeen won't.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
Watching the bi-centennial test match between Australia and England in Sydney in 1988, it's interesting to note how nearly all the flags being waved in the crowd by England fans are Union Jacks, not England flags. Slightly different to the situation today. See 10 mins, 17 secs for example.
The England fans today are correct as it is only England (with the occasional Welsh player) playing. Scotland and Ireland have their own cricket teams.
Union Jacks should be reserved for the Olympics, Davis Cup, F1 etc
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
Obviously, the DfE are all those things, but it's wider government policy;
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
That they are implementing a policy designed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, another who has always taken the view that rules only apply to other people, is if anything even worse.
Bit much for HMG to complain about banks trawling social media to get rid of people they don't want as customers, when they do it themselves for people they don't want ...
A government that includes Suella Braverman and Grant Shapps is full of stupid hypocrites?
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Well that post puts you on the naughty list.
JRM is most likely cancelling your bank account as I write
I do hope so, because then I can sue him, make a fortune and retire.
I am not sure it works like that. Only for national treasures like Nigel. Unless of course you are a national treasure.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
If they are sacked, they will be given better, more responsible jobs. See Rotherham.
This is why I plan to recruit the entire department to participate in the New British Space Program. Make! Britain! Great! Again!
I hope Jacob Rees-Mogg is made an honorary DfE civil servant for this purpose?
Can’t see why not.
Something that people both sides of the divide don’t understand is that the civil servants and the politicians are from exactly the same… pond.
If you meet a group of them, you won’t know until you ask, who is who. The civil servants like to think they are Sir Humphrey *and* experts on everything. The politicians see themselves as Masters of The Universe.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
I entirely agree on the “travel now” thing. It does feel quite apocalyptic out there, and it is one reason I am travelling intensely at the moment
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
Sri Lanka, both wetter and sunnier than Cornwall on average.
Yes. When it rains it chucks it down. But it's often at night or in a short burst, and then the sun comes out. Not days of light drizzle. To be fair though the sun is out now in Cornwall and we are heading to the beach while the sun and the tides are in our favour.
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
I entirely agree on the “travel now” thing. It does feel quite apocalyptic out there, and it is one reason I am travelling intensely at the moment
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
I generally have only one long haul holiday every couple of years now. Partly environmental guilt, but mostly because I enjoy England most of the year, only wanting to get away midwinter. I shall be back on the Isle of Wight later this summer for a week.
Because of clinical duties it is hard to be off more than 2 weeks too, and I enjoy my job so won't be retiring for another decade or so. (All plans subject to events!)
Dry here today, so Mrs Foxy prodding me to cut the lawn...
GOP pres. candidate @WillHurd tells IA GOP that Donald Trump is not running to make America great again:“ Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” which prompted gasps, boos & a smattering of applause from the Iowa GOP audience.
The 'gasps' description is a funny one, since it would show either those people were genuinely shocked anyone could say such a thing, in which case they never go online, or they were just stunned anyone would dare say as much to such an event.
Hurd seems to be competing with Christie for anti-Trump votes, but in a more low key, "I'm so disappointed" kind of way.
From the sunny perspective of Chernovtsi, Bukovina (26C, partly cloudy) this doesn’t look good
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
No, the best.
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
That's as may be but our two weeks in Cornwall are the least sunny we've ever had. Our plans to go to Sri Lanka next summer are firming up.
Sri Lanka in summer?! Hmm. Can be nice. But choose your exact destination wisely
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
Yes and you'd think we'd get it right for that reason, but a few years back we went to Trinco in December, with my parents in law, and it poured with rain. They had completely forgotten about the North East monsoon.
Sri Lanka, both wetter and sunnier than Cornwall on average.
Yes. When it rains it chucks it down. But it's often at night or in a short burst, and then the sun comes out. Not days of light drizzle. To be fair though the sun is out now in Cornwall and we are heading to the beach while the sun and the tides are in our favour.
We're there next week, Cornwall. Hoping the weather improves a bit. I thought early Aug was a pretty safe booking in that respect, but it seems not.
Where's our regular Saturday morning guest contributor to liven things up?
It's the silly season, parliament in recess, static polls. Not much going on politically. Only so much can be said about Starmer being wooden and timid, and Sunak drowning, not waving.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
I entirely agree on the “travel now” thing. It does feel quite apocalyptic out there, and it is one reason I am travelling intensely at the moment
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
What are your views on popcorn, flavored, plain, and/or buttered?
Sublime treat OR grotesque Americanism?
Popcorn should be bough as corn, and self-popped. Salted variety only.
Boris Johnson watches The Road: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches Newsnight: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches paint dry: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Etc
Boris Johnson watches The Road: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches Newsnight: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches paint dry: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Etc
He cannot see a blonde that he doesn't want to impregnate.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I once had dinner with the guy who invented Jacob’s Creek. Literally came up with the idea and the brand. It was in a very high end restaurant on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. Unsurprisingly he is now mega wealthy
He said - with a chuckle - “I like to think of it as the longest creek in the world”. He was satirising his own product. It is produced on an industrial scale
But it is absolutely drinkable. Even now when it has been superseded by 1000 other wines (often copying the method). If you’re stuck: It will do
As for your Carrefour example, I wouldn’t know. I would literally NEVER drink a bottle of wine from Carrefour that cost “€3-5”
UGH
Somewhat related - thanks for mentioning Vivino a while back. I've picked up some very nice bottles over the past little while.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
I entirely agree on the “travel now” thing. It does feel quite apocalyptic out there, and it is one reason I am travelling intensely at the moment
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
I generally have only one long haul holiday every couple of years now. Partly environmental guilt, but mostly because I enjoy England most of the year, only wanting to get away midwinter. I shall be back on the Isle of Wight later this summer for a week.
Because of clinical duties it is hard to be off more than 2 weeks too, and I enjoy my job so won't be retiring for another decade or so. (All plans subject to events!)
Dry here today, so Mrs Foxy prodding me to cut the lawn...
I assuage my environmental guilt by 1. Not owning a car any more and 2. Living in a 1 bed flat which doesn’t require much heating or indeed anything
Flying aside, my carbon footprint is tiny. So: that allows me to fly all the time. Or so I have decided
Over 123mm of rain in Sidmouth so far this July. That’s close to 5 inches in old money. But we need every drop of it given the calamitous way South West Water manages our supply. For the local tourist economy, though, it’s a disaster. If it’s not been raining, raw sewage has been pouring into the sea and closing beaches - hat tip to SWW once more! The one silver lining is that there is no need for the hotel and bar staff that were being advertised for in every window in June.
Boris Johnson watches The Road: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches Newsnight: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Boris Johnson watches paint dry: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies! Etc
He cannot see a blonde that he doesn't want to impregnate.
If you do a thought experiment that says Boris is brain-damaged and his actions are entirely those of an adapted brain running off his hindbrain and retained reflexes - "harrumph, latin tag, latin tag, see girl, impregnate girl, see man, fight or run away, harrumph" - it makes a surprising degree of sense
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
No-one in the world does crisps as good as the British.
I would also argue that we lead the world in mid-range confectionery. Sure, the Belgians can craft luxury chocolate. But where is their equivalent of the Twirl? And the less said about German or American confectionery the better.
You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika.
That's it.
Not in Spain - they do cheese, ham and truffle flavours too. Very tasty with a cold beer!
I'd love to know what the Swiss think about wine. They have their own, which doesn't tend to get exported due to domestic demand and perhaps uncompetitive costs - but they are sandwiched between three great wine producing nations.
I’ve done a Gazette piece on Swiss wine (and been to producers)
They make some nice stuff. They simply can’t export it due to currency pressures. The Franc is too strong
Their supermarkets are not very exciting places to buy wine. Very little from the New World
We are blessed in the UK with an astounding variety of wine in even a medium sized Tesco/M&S/Sainsbury’s. Chile to South Africa, Spain to Portugal, France to New Zealand. You will struggle to find similar variety anywhere else on earth; in fact, I haven’t ever found it
A combination of - until recently- not being a wine producing country ourselves and empire/commonwealth giving us access to wines from around the world?
Also crisp flavours. Nobody on earth can rival us for sheer variety and exoticism of crisp flavours.
Some of which are edible.
Personally, I don't think I've ever come across a crisp I found inedible. Some are dull though, which is unforgiveable in a crisp. I am sure it's got a bit better now but in Germany you used to only get plain or paprika flavour. The phillistines.
I also have a theory that crisps aren't at all fattening, as really you're only getting about a potato's worth. And of that a lot of the starches will be resistant starch because of the cooking process.
What are your views on popcorn, flavored, plain, and/or buttered?
Sublime treat OR grotesque Americanism?
Popcorn should be bough as corn, and self-popped. Salted variety only.
No one does home cooking, these days !
I find popcorn a bit meh in any format. The cool bit is actually popping the stuff, but as a snack, I'll eat it but I'd rather have crisps (incl Doritos, Monster Munch etc.) any time.
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
PB is social media. It's beginning to occur to me the next time I apply for a DV/SC job this site may be a concern.
On topic (are you sure - ed.?) - I think the lesson from Uxbridge (and also the Green evisceration on Brighton Council) is not that people are fundamentally opposed to improvements to the environment - as seen in the FT JB Murdoch graphs above - the UK is less polarised than US/Germany and Con voters are more pro-environment than many of their left wing peers in other countries - but what people won't thole is having solutions imposed upon them without adequate consultation. In Brighton it was cycle lanes (and virtue signalling instead of basic competence), in Uxbridge ULEZ.
Let's hope the parties learn the correct lessons, rather than the wrong ones. With Labour's u-turn evolution on trans/women's rights issues we may be dodging a damaging culture war which has descended into an unholy mess in the USA - lets hope "the environment" also avoids a similar fate.
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
It depends on context and history
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Fair enough if you like it but I've always felt ill after drinking it - I think it's pure Australian shite.
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
I once had dinner with the guy who invented Jacob’s Creek. Literally came up with the idea and the brand. It was in a very high end restaurant on the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney. Unsurprisingly he is now mega wealthy
He said - with a chuckle - “I like to think of it as the longest creek in the world”. He was satirising his own product. It is produced on an industrial scale
But it is absolutely drinkable. Even now when it has been superseded by 1000 other wines (often copying the method). If you’re stuck: It will do
As for your Carrefour example, I wouldn’t know. I would literally NEVER drink a bottle of wine from Carrefour that cost “€3-5”
UGH
Somewhat related - thanks for mentioning Vivino a while back. I've picked up some very nice bottles over the past little while.
You’re welcome. The more people that use it the better it gets. It is now seriously reliable as an indicator of quality. Over 4 stars is 👍
I have a family staying from Limoges this weekend. Friends of friends, never met them before. I gave them (bien sur) some English wine: a Nyetimber 2015 blanc de blancs, along with - of course - shepherds pie.
This is the nth time I’ve either talked about or given English wine to French people. They are never surprised, they don’t turn their noses up, they don’t even go the other way and feign fascination. They approach it like they might approach say Croatian or Greek wine. Slightly exotic but to be respected.
Every time this happens it shocks me. Compare that with Germans. Several times I’ve talked about or attempted to proffer English wine to Germans. Each time utter disbelief and amused bafflement. Sniggering at the back. Fundamentally unserious. Same with the Italians. Laughter and mockery.
Why? Is it that France is that much closer to us so they can do the mental maths to add a few decades of climate change on to champagne? Is it that France has a similar attitude to all foreign impersonations of actual proper wine that England is just another vin étranger? Are they just more polite?
You’d think the French would by reputation be THE most dismissive of English wine but time after time they’re not at all.
Because the French people generally know about wine. And that the “only French wine is real wine” is horseshit from the domestic industry. Who have lost several markers as a result.
Many Germans simply buy into the French Is The Only Wine thing.
Yes, I think that’s it
The French wine industry is massive, yet it has been calamitously damaged by New World wine, eg Australia (which, I think, now has more of the massive UK market than France)
They have seen that wine from new countries does well, if marketed properly (or, indeed, marketed better than theirs - 19 Crimes, Jacob’s Creek) and a lot of French wine makers have suffered. Not the posh claret or Burgundy guys but the middle and lower ranks
So, a new country offering good wine deserves respect. That is simple commercial sense. Germany exports very little wine, so they don’t understand the pressures
Italians don’t care to understand anything and therefore veer between frivolity and Fascism. It is their genius
19 Crimes and Jacob's Creek is shit though.
My personal favourites at the moment are new world Shiraz wines like Penfolds and the feather plucker's daughter. They are delicious but still reasonably priced for day to day consumption. On whites I still prefer French wines such as chablis but I would rarely buy a French red anymore.
Alsace whites - hard to beat.
I am big fan of Beaujolais too, and Southern Rhones. Sainsbury have a very nice Ventoux at £9 at present. Why anyone would drink 19 Crimes at more or less the same price beats me. I am not a fan of Australian Shiraz, all it does is give me gastritis and a headache.
Er, there are about a zillion different kinds of Aussie Shiraz. I find it hard to believe they ALL make you ill
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
I love Australia, and have quite a family connection there, but not at all a fan of Australian Shiraz. There are some good ones at the top end, but mostly it is over-strength, over ripe and full bodied to the point of obesity. I avoid them.
I think that’s an outdated view of Aussie Shiraz from about 20 years ago - when, to be fair, a lot of them did become fruit bombs
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania - and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
Portuguese reds are often good, but I generally find Argentinian Malbec disappointing. Pinotage is another grape that I don't like.
I agree on Pinotage. Tastes like burnt condoms
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
South America is the big gap in my world travel map. Costa Rica and Trinidad is as close as I have been.
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
I entirely agree on the “travel now” thing. It does feel quite apocalyptic out there, and it is one reason I am travelling intensely at the moment
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
Comments
That's it.
He is a typical north-London left-winger who is cosplaying one-nation. Not even very convincingly in my view as I think his views of the nation and the flag are the same as Emily Thornberry's; he just wants to win so he's playing the role he needs to.
Meanwhile, he's actually got several leftwing policies he's already chalked up in his embryonic manifesto, which people seem quite happy to dismiss or ignore.
He is no Tony Blair.
What do you think of the local authority planning powers policy ?
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/07/belgium-pre-sprint-nonsense-2023.html
I was quite surprised.
The idea that America is unpopular all over the world is just total horseshit...America is extremely popular.
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1684986303799300096
"You get two kinds of crisp on the continent: salted and paprika. That's it."
Bit grumpy this morning @Casino_Royale.
Your animus against renewables distorts your analysis.
But why would that make the US so unpopular in Australia ? It's a real outlier.
That should liven things up, and inject some real politics
Just had an excellent email from the Lib Dems including a heat map of the issues in Somerton and Frome (GP appointments came top). If Labour had done similar research in Uxbridge before the election was announced (and they had long enough notice) ULEZ would have come up.
It has been suggested that the savvy Labour Party managers have all left to work for the Greens who if they take 5% at the GE are going to mean that the Tories hold on to many more seats than they otherwise would have done without them.
Is Britain experiencing the *worst* July in almost four decades?
Tensions among nuclear powers are rising, but decades of peace have resulted in a dearth of people trained to deal with the continuing threat.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/28/nuclear-experts-russia-war-00108438
Without it, we were facing severe drought conditions in the very near future.
Those mid 80s summers were wet, dull and vert cool. This is primarily dull, and quite wet. But no flooding. Just incredibly dull.
Last night for example it didn’t get below 17C here.
May back Perez each way for the win.
GOP pres. candidate @WillHurd tells IA GOP that Donald Trump is not running to make America great again:“ Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” which prompted gasps, boos & a smattering of applause from the Iowa GOP audience.
Some booed Hurd as he walked off the stage.
https://twitter.com/finnygo/status/1685090333019774982
At that price point they dominate - because the low end French wine at the equivalent price point is not as good.
Yeah, you can drink better. By going to the vineyard and negotiating I can get a bottle of a Premier Cru Chablis for less than a bottle of Jacobs Creek. At the cost of travelling across France and a weeks holiday…
As a brand, Jacob’s Creek is ancient. It was launched 45 years ago. Almost half a century. At
that time most red wine in Britain (and elsewhere) was French, with some Spanish and Italian - and it was REALLY hit or miss.
Unless you were quite expert, it was very hard to decipher what you might get in a bottle. French labels didn’t tell you the grape or blend. They were DELIBERATELY impenetrable - to maintain the mystique of French wine
Then the Aussies said Nah, here’s a decent red, it’s Shiraz, it’s £5, it’s always the same. Pleasantly fruity, nothing surprising. A Revolution. They sold a trillion litres, and changed the world of wine
Now it’s been overtaken, and you can get good reliable red wine from Chile, South Africa, Argentina, all over Oz, much of Europe. They all tell you the grape, blend, ageing etc
19 Crimes is repeating the process (but not as dramatically). It’s entirely palatable wine. I will still fall on it with relief if I’m in some remote corner of the world stuck for a decent drinkable red
Any petty grievances for yourself this morning?
I’d honestly rather be in war-torn (cough, Bukovina - not that war-torn) Ukraine. Sunny with a chance of drones
Although don’t you have a Sri Lankan wife? Maybe I misremember. If you do you must know it well
https://bylinetimes.com/2023/07/25/government-cancel-culture-the-department-for-education-speaker-blacklist/
The DfE is full of people who are totally incompetent, stupid, liars, bullies and fools. We all knew that. but it appears they are also thin-skinned cowards and Orwellian control freaks as well.
They are utterly unfit to manage the nation's educational affairs. The sooner they are all stood down and sacked the better.
It’s like saying “cheese from Germany gives me a migraine”
Sophie Ellis Bextor has aged well, for the 6 Music Dads:
O/T but especially for @JosiasJessop some new listings by Historic England in the Bristol Docks - notably adjustment of the Brunelian swingbridge that has been sitting at the entrance almost forgotten until recent work.
https://www.brunelsotherbridge.org.uk/
Presumably based on research published last year - the introduction only alas is open access.
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yhet20/92/1?nav=tocList
Further north and the highlands it gets quirkier
A surprising amount of variation for a fairly tiny island
https://twitter.com/themindrobber/status/1684236360763289605?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
The report quoted allies of the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying the due diligence policy, which took effect this week, was “very sensible” and should be implemented straight away, since “there have been far too many examples recently where essentially extremist speakers have been invited to speak to civil servants and staff networks”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/15/new-cabinet-office-rules-ban-speakers-who-have-criticised-government-policy
https://nowthatsnifty.blogspot.com/2012/01/204-lays-potato-chip-flavors-from.html?m=1
You?
I could buy any random French wine from Carrefour for €3-5 euro and it'd almost certainly be better, even if I had to chuck what I hadn't drunk after 24 hours.
There’s much more variation now
On your 19 crimes point No I would almost never buy it in the UK - but that’s because we have so much choice. The best value nice widely-available reds in Britain at the moment are generally Portuguese or Argentine and less obvious bits of France. It changes from year to year
But come with me to an obscure corner shop in Ethiopia or Ruthenia or rural rundown Pennsylvania
- and feel the joy when, amongst the gut rot, you spy a bottle of 19 Crimes. You know it will be drinkable for under a tender
YAY
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
This is why I plan to recruit the entire department to participate in the New British Space Program. Make! Britain! Great! Again!
He said - with a chuckle - “I like to think of it as the longest creek in the world”. He was satirising his own product. It is produced on an industrial scale
But it is absolutely drinkable. Even now when it has been superseded by 1000 other wines (often copying the method). If you’re stuck: It will do
As for your Carrefour example, I wouldn’t know. I would literally NEVER drink a bottle of wine from Carrefour that cost “€3-5”
UGH
The Australians did clear a lot of bullshit with their straightforward approach to wine marketing, with single varietal ready to drink fruity wines that need no ageing and have plenty of alcohol. Australian Chardonnay was the Liebfraumilch of the Nineties.
Things have got slightly more sophisticated since in Australia, but in general people want cheap fruity wines, and it is good business to give them what they want.
https://youtu.be/DJyGxRC8i68
JRM is most likely cancelling your bank account as I write
Eng +13
Aus +25
Aus +42
Eng +57
Eng +42
Eng +38
Eng +27
Eng +27
Aus +22
Aus +18
Aus +12
Australia bowled better than us but our fielding was superior. Both teams had 4 single figure innings, though you could argue without Labuschagne's 9 from 2 balls England would likely have dismissed Murphy and Cummins quicker than they did because they wouldn't be so knackered. Both the spinners got the same score, but Murphy will be able to bowl 2nd innings whereas Moeen won't.
England's 78.1 overs on a non rain affected second day must be approaching the lowest ever in a day where
i) Only 1 side batted and 1 bowled
ii) There were no rain or bad light breaks
iii) There was no major injury to anyone.
On Malbec you’re missing out. Look beyond the supermarkets and try buying more direct. You can get some astounding wines. The higher altitude stuff is often the best
Argentina is probably the best place in the world to buy wine domestically. Even the best local Malbecs are cheap there. You can walk into a wine shop in Iguazu and buy an absolute world class wine for $8
Union Jacks should be reserved for the Olympics, Davis Cup, F1 etc
My Cornish relatives say it’s the worst July they can remember. And some of them have seen a few
I was thinking of going to Brazil next year, before Bolsonaro gets reelected and destroys the Pantanal wetlands.
We are living in the last days of Rome, we might as well enjoy ourselves before the new dark ages.
Something that people both sides of the divide don’t understand is that the civil servants and the politicians are from exactly the same… pond.
If you meet a group of them, you won’t know until you ask, who is who. The civil servants like to think they are Sir Humphrey *and* experts on everything. The politicians see themselves as Masters of The Universe.
Re South America. Consider instead the Ibera wetlands in Argentina. Just as beautiful as the Pantanal, much less visited, and close to the Iguazu falls - which are by a distance the most spectacular falls in the world. You will not be disappointed. I’ve seen everything but Iguazu still knocked me out
And once you are there it’s a short hop to Bolivia or Peru or the atacama in Chile. It’s probably the most interesting corner of South America in terms of “packing it all in” to one region
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230614-the-iber-wetlands-argentinas-answer-to-yellowstone
To be fair though the sun is out now in Cornwall and we are heading to the beach while the sun and the tides are in our favour.
I generally have only one long haul holiday every couple of years now. Partly environmental guilt, but mostly because I enjoy England most of the year, only wanting to get away midwinter. I shall be back on the Isle of Wight later this summer for a week.
Because of clinical duties it is hard to be off more than 2 weeks too, and I enjoy my job so won't be retiring for another decade or so. (All plans subject to events!)
Dry here today, so Mrs Foxy prodding me to cut the lawn...
Where's our regular Saturday morning guest contributor to liven things up?
The 'gasps' description is a funny one, since it would show either those people were genuinely shocked anyone could say such a thing, in which case they never go online, or they were just stunned anyone would dare say as much to such an event.
Hurd seems to be competing with Christie for anti-Trump votes, but in a more low key, "I'm so disappointed" kind of way.
No one does home cooking, these days !
Boris Johnson watches Newsnight: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies!
Boris Johnson watches paint dry: It's a rallying cry for humans to have more babies!
Etc
Flying aside, my carbon footprint is tiny. So: that allows me to fly all the time. Or so I have decided
There are alternatives. Chernivtsi today. Absolutely perfect
Let's hope the parties learn the correct lessons, rather than the wrong ones. With Labour's u-turn evolution on trans/women's rights issues we may be dodging a damaging culture war which has descended into an unholy mess in the USA - lets hope "the environment" also avoids a similar fate.
https://twitter.com/writesbright/status/1685056403575050240?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ