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| Give power to the people |
Wine criticism needs to be pulled away from
a few experts and given back to the masses
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Raymond Postgate
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POST-war, early 1950s Britain was still experiencing food rationing
and was a disillusioning place for English gourmands. The war had
destroyed the restaurant trade and, with few exceptions, post-war
eateries made the worst of a bad situation.
Raymond Postgate, a founding member of the British Communist Party,
established the Good Food Club and then in 1950 the Good Food Guide.
The concept was simple, anyone who had the price of a meal could
write up their experience – and subject to editorial control
– have it published in the guide.
The objective was to promote and encourage the spread of restaurants
that despite all the hardships made the best of what was available.
By the 1960s the simple Postgate method was losing out to English
writers like Elizabeth David, who favoured a more flamboyant approach
to food.
But the final blow to Postgate’s inclusive food writing strategy
was delivered with the publication of Henri Gault and Christian
Millau’s guide to Paris. This book by a debonair duo immaculately
dressed, opinionated, witty and clearly knowledgeable caused considerable
excitement.
Soon British imitators such as Egon Rony appeared.
The development of British eating was now in the hands of experts.
Raymond Postgate’s attempt to create a dialogue whereby the
diner spoke directly to the restaurateur – by means of the
Good Food Guide – was sidelined. In the 1960s the Consumer
Association bought the Good Food Guide and employed professional
inspectors.
Postgate had also written a series of books called The Plain Man’s
Guide to Wine, but wine in 1950s Britain was never going to be the
domain of the ordinary person.
Wine consumption was low and the nearest vineyards were miles across
the Channel and inaccessible. Specialist writers were required;
serious individuals, they toured the wine-making regions of the
world visited the vineyards and spoke to the farmers.
By the 1980s, wine consumption had become fashionable. TV wanted
wine experts, but not dry, academics who spent most of their time
abroad.
This was a job for brash actors and journalists, their knowledge
of wine, at best, extended no further than the bottom of a wine
bottle, but they knew how to entertain. How wine was made and who
made it was irrelevant. It was the taste that counts, they claimed.
Borrowing from the American wine showman Robert Parker, who favoured
strong tasting American-style wines and used fruit references to
describe them, they began to discuss wine tastes in terms reminiscent
of an exotic fruit cocktail or the ingredients in a cake.
Hampstead resident Hugh Johnson is not a TV celebrity yet he is
still one of the brightest stars in the wine firmament, his pocket
wine book first published in 1977 sells more than 400,000 copies
a year and is published in 12 languages.
His World Atlas of Wine after 34 years is still in print and on
its fifth edition.
At the Cheltenham Festival of Literature he commented on those who
shape popular British wine opinion who “think they have detected
all these flavours and aromas but wine is not like apple or blackcurrants
– a bottle of wine smells and tastes like wine”.
Major changes, driven by technology and big business are changing
the nature of wine production.
There is more to wine and food than taste. How and where they are
made and what’s in them is as important. If we wine drinkers
fail to notice and influence events, we will end up drinking the
wine equivelent of a Turkey Twizzler.
This column is written in the same spirit as Postgate’s Good
Food Guide. If you know a pub, restaurant or retailer who is supplying
an interesting wine, email us at: wine@camdennewjournal.co.uk
THIS WEEK'S WINE
Château Jouanin, Cotes de Castillon, France, 2002, 13.5 per
cent, £6.99. It is 70 per cent Merlot, 30 per cent Cabernet
Franc, aged in oak, £6.99. This is a family estate of under
100 acres. The estate has grown steadily since the Taix family first
acquired it in 1936 and is now one of the biggest in the region.
The French wine retailers Rough and Blanc www.rough-blanc.com describe
this as the next generation of Bordeaux wines, rounded, concentrated
without aggressive tannins and with no vegetable tastes.
It at first excited the taste-buds with a dish of bangers and mash
and enhanced this simple dish. But by the third mouthful the taste-buds
were over excited and the taste of the meal and we were left with
a mouthful of cardboard.
A lesson re-learned the right food with the right wine. |
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Give power to the people
POST-war, early 1950s Britain was still experiencing food rationing
and was a disillusioning place for English gourmands. The war had
destroyed the restaurant trade and, with few exceptions, post-war
eateries made the worst of a bad situation.
FULL STORY
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