Highly illuminating surveys - Part 23
British wine buffs? Wine bluffers, more like
Published Date: 09 April 2010
By Craig Brown
BRITONS are far better at drinking wine than knowing about it, according to new research.
Despite imbibing millions of litres every year, it appears that as a nation our knowledge travels little further than whether it goes well with fish, fowl or red meat.
Britons (but not Celts, Angles, Saxons or the pesky Jutish tribe) are jolly good at drinking - and getting a wee bit tipsy by all accounts, according to incontrovertible (twas always thus) New Research. Despite imbibing (good word!) a zillion litres (I drink wine by the glass myself) we haven’t got a clue what we are drinking but can match the wines cleverly with salmon, chicken and beef dishes, which suggests to me, that the British public should be given a job in the wine trade toot sweet.
Two-thousand wine lovers took part in a survey exploring their knowledge of the drink.
I bet they did, I bet they did.
The results revealed a range of insights – including the majority of respondents picking the second-cheapest wine listed on a restaurant menu and treating the advice from a sommelier like a foreign language.
Maybe “insights” is a trifle exaggerated. I would be surprised if the majority of respondents (how quaint) pick the second cheapest wine on a restaurant menu. Surely, the wines would be on the wine list. In any case any restaurant worth its salt that employs a sommelier probably doesn’t list its wines vertically so it would take a lot of cross-referencing before the customer discovered the second cheapest wine. Unless like Homer Simpson they imperiously snapped their fingers and said: “Garcon! A bottle of your second cheapest champagne, please!” Moreover, customers gravitate to the brands, what we in the biz, call the Pinot Grigio Default, regardless of whether they are third, fourth or tenth on the list.
As for the sommelier’s advice if it is uttered in a foreign language then it should be treated as a foreign language, but most sommeliers are happy to speak in the demotic rather than the exotic patois of wine speak. And, like, they sort of, like, ask what you normally like to drink.
A majority 62 per cent of participants believed they knew a lot about wine but got basic facts wrong.
What? They knew a lot about wine, but they knew they didn’t know the basic facts.
The incorrect answer cropping up the most, at 87 per cent, was that Champagne can only be made from white grapes, when it is in fact also made from red.
And we know that it is made from the tears of chalk...
This dearth of wine knowledge has had a knock-on effect when it comes to choosing a bottle in a restaurant or supermarket.
While 39 per cent said they have no method to choosing wine in a restaurant, 66 per cent will either ignore or bluff their way through a sommelier’s advice and pretend to understand their consultation.
Ah, the old method of choosing wine in a restaurant. You solicit a meeting with the delphic sommelier who allows you a consultation (does this take place in Harley Street?). Gnomic utterances are exchanged, bluff and counter-bluff, and if you end up with a bottle of wine on your table you are one lucky punter.
The earlier stages of the dinner had worn off. The wine lists had been consulted, by some with the blank embarrassment of a schoolboy suddenly called upon to locate a Minor Prophet in the tangled hinterland of the Old Testament, by others with the severe scrutiny which suggests that they have visited most of the higher-priced wines in their own homes and probed their family weaknesses. The diners who chose their wine in the latter fashion always gave their orders in a penetrating voice, with a plentiful garnishing of stage directions. By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce the impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine.
The Chaplet - Saki (H.H. Munro)
Even if they do accept the sommelier’s recommendations, 30 per cent said they would not trust his opinion. Also, 84 per cent feel they are being ripped off with their wine selection in restaurants.
I will defend to the death your right, o perfidious sommelier, to give me advice, and I will take that advice, but don’t expect me to trust you or like you in the slightest.
Or, to put it another way, if I feel like steak and a waiter recommends the fish, I will automatically change my mind, like the feek and weeble cur that I am, and then hugely resent the waiter for the rest of the evening.
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However, Rose Murray Brown, wine expert and Scotsman columnist, believes wine knowledge is more widespread than the new research suggests.
“I think that people actually know more about wine than they think,” she says. “It is a big subject, but you don’t have to have a massive knowledge to enjoy it. But I can understand why people still struggle a bit in restaurants.
“You’re given a huge list of wines to read in just a couple of minutes with somebody towering over you. It’s an imposing situation.
Those sommeliers need to get off their high horses and stepladders.
“However, I do think people are showing more interest in learning about wine as a subject and that air of pomposity that has surrounded it is in the past.”
The research was commissioned to mark the launch of WINEfindr, a pocket sommelier application for the iPhone.
Screw tops to hollow bottoms – how much do you know?
1. Which type of popular wine has the highest alcohol content? a. Burgundy b. Zinfandel c. Pinotage
That popular wine that you and I in the business call Burgundy. It is so generic. Depends. Certain red Zins have enough alcohol to cauterise wounds or disperse rioting crowds, but milquetoast white Zin (more zinning than zinned against) is a whole other ball of wax. As for Pinotage, we don’t really know what it is. So comparisons are odious and perhaps even odorous.
2. Are screw-top wines poorer quality than corked wines?
Presumably anything is better than “corked” wines!
3. Which country is the biggest importer of wine?
Those Great Britons with their mighty supermarkets.
4. Does wine get better with age?
Yes/No/Maybe
5. Can you tell a wine’s authenticity by the packaging?
What on earth does this mean? Yes, and no. Labelling explains origin (and,in many cases, grape variety) and there are strict, sometimes over-fastidious laws governing what can be put on label. The label is no guarantee of relative quality, but that is not what the question asks.
6. What is the difference between a Sancerre and a Sauvignon Blanc? a. Different grapes. b. Same grape different region c. Different grapes different regions
Huh. Badly phrased question. Sancerre is the name of the village and appellation, which also happens to a place where they make Rose and Rouge. So the question should ask about Sancerre Blanc. There is probably nothing to prevent a Sancerre grower putting Sauvignon Blanc on his label should he or she so decide. If a wine is made 5m outside the Sancerre appellation it would have to be called Sauvignon. In fact, the more I read this question the dafter it reads!
7. What grape is rosé made from? a. Red b. White c. Both
Surely which grapes are roses made from would be a more accurate question.. And, to be accurate, with long macerations you can made rose-style wines from so-called white grapes. But grapes aren’t red or white. They are a range of colours from almost black to purple to...
8. What percentage of the total cost of a £5 bottle of wine is paid as tax by you to the UK government? a. 25 per cent b. 40 per cent c. above 50 per cent
Who cares? It is too much
9. How many units of alcohol are there in an average bottle of 13 per cent table wine? a. 1 b. 3 c.10
Please don’t tell me that the majority of people didn’t say 1
10. Does a hollow-bottom wine bottle have anything to do with the quality of the wine and its price?
The famous hollow-bottom wine bottle - is that what they are calling it these days.
11. When someone speaks of a wine having “great legs”, what do they mean?
It looks like Cyd Charisse.
ANSWERS: 1. Pinotage, 2. No, some of the world’s best wineries use them, 3. Britain, 4. Not all wines do, 5. No, 6. Same grape from different regions, 7. Red mainly, though sometimes both grapes, 8. 55 per cent, 9. 10 units, 10. No, 11. The greater the alcohol content the longer the “legs”.