Made a real mistake in the very early days.
Up to Paris for a car thingy, invited to stay in Herblay with fellow club-members.
We took a bottle of wine, bought recently near us, way down South…
Hmm… mine-host looked at the bottle most suspiciously…
Why have you given me this? Is my wine not to your liking?
He rumbled on a bit and his wife was hovering, looking very anxious at this turn of events… (I thought we might end up sleeping on the streets…)
Humbly, I explained that the wine is produced locally to us, by a small producer… and us Brits, knowing nothing about wine… well… ahem… "we’re hoping that you will give us your verdict… ".
Ah, that brought a smile to his face… and, yes, we did try the wine at some stage over the weekend… and he pronounced it “not bad at all… in fact… rather good”… phew.
We’re still the best of friends… but don’t ask me what the wine was, 'cos that is lost in the alcoholic mists of time…
I still have a bottle of “violet crémant” in our cave, which we haven’t yet had courage to open as such awful memories of that little drop of violet. But then I do dislike violet, and lavender and those very perfumed floral things. However, a drop of mûr, or myrtille and I’m happy.
plod:
my tastes have got drier I find demi-sec quite sweet.
It’s often the other way, and as you and your taste buds age you prefer sweeter things.
Username34:
and they all agree with my theory that the French keep the good stuff for themselves and send the crap to the UK.
So a French vineyard that bottles thousands of bottles of its own wine each year is somehow able to tell which one are crap to export to Uk, and keep the good ones for the French market? How on earth do they manage that?
Ok some places in the UK don’t store wine well, so it will have lost some flavour by being too hot. But otherwise the same bottle of wine of same year will taste the same in UK as France. How could it be otherwise??
Plod n Hairbear…….if you read what I said Mouton is questionable in the UK but totally different in France….it most certainly is so.
OF COURSE the vineyard owner can tell the quality of his crop he is not stupid he is expert at his trade. Soil condition and orientation of his land towards the sun or even catering for the UK trade. Should he ascertain that his crop is particularly bad one year then he could pass that on to the UK market.
Do you not think this happens?
Sorry but you haven’t experienced enough drinking the stuff between the two countries and please do not take that as an insult in any way…….I am sure you feel that the French would always put us on a par with their own folk as they love us so much but I still maintain that they keep the good stuff for themselves and pass the crap to the UK. Try it and see.
Returning to the earlier chap looking for some wine advice….my wife and I were once in a supermarket on the way back to our elected home and were viewing the vast array of wine on offer there in complete confusion.
We noticed a French guy looking at wine labels and seemed to look as though he knew exactly what he was doing….as the French always do when reading the wine label!….but in fact this guy confessed that he really had no idea either!
He did point out though that the way he chose his wine never failed to provide him with a very nice choice of wine……and what was his secret we asked?
He recommended always to look for the small circular GREEN disc on the top of the bottle and you really couldn’t go wrong!
Unbelievable but it works….BUT……I have to say that since they keep the good stuff for themselves they give themselves more choice….even their 4Euro stuff can be super.
Incidentally Brittany Ferries have a brilliant array of wine choice going over but coming back P&O provided a most rubbish choice of wine seemingly yuk Australian cheap plonk.
I predict the demise of P&O and hope that Brittany Ferries take it over despite the fact that I thank the Lord we left the EU to you folks.
The capsule congé (for that is its name) isn’t compulsory on bottles any more, the law was passed in 2018. It indicated the amount and type of duty paid on the wine in France. If you are a vigneron indépendant you got them from the tabac in the village because they are part of the tax system, like getting tax stamps for fines etc.
Green is AOC wine, blue is vin de France so not usually very good, confusingly maroon can replace both, pfff. There are other colours but I can’t tell you what they mean off the top of my head.
It is true that at the same price, wine bought in France will be better quality than French wine bought in UK because that has to do with the different amount of duty. I spent a couple of years as marketing director of a vignoble until it clashed with being a single parent of small children so I know a little bit about it.
How? You can buy the same wine from the same year in both UK and France. It is the SAME - apart from the price of course.
Or are you talking about different years? In which case it’s probably down to the wine buyers thinking they can pass on a poorer, cheaper vintage. Nothing to do with the French (unless the wine buyer is French of course).
And I have been drinking wine in both countries for many years, and your idea is nonesense. As are your viewson what is decent wine.
And your French guy knew what AOC meant, so not such a stupid idea.
still maintain that they keep the good stuff for themselves and pass the crap to the UK. Try it and see.
How? You can buy the same wine from the same year in both UK and France. It is the SAME - apart from the price of course.
Or are you talking about different years? In which case it’s probably down to the wine buyers thinking they can pass on a poorer, cheaper vintage. Nothing to do with the French (unless the wine buyer is French of course).
And I have been drinking wine in both countries for many years, and your idea is nonesense. As are your viewson what is decent wine.
And your French guy knew what AOC meant, so not such a stupid idea.
I did say that I wasn’t an expert did I not? I also said that my OPINION would bring the wallys out of the woodwork.Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.
No need to be up your xxxx or nasty….I haven’t brought up your spelling have I?
This is my own personal opinion which I am I am entitled to in the UK.
My reply was actually directed to the original guy that started the post. Mind you I did anticipated the wallys as you get them everywhere especially when one talks about wine…but I DID say I was not an expert……just trying to help our original chap……sorry I forgot his naaeme!
As you say, you are not an expert in wine. Neither am I, but living here it seems only polite to try to learn a bit about the industry. I personally don’t have the taste buds to distinguish the special character of (eg) €40 or €50 wine, so instead have explored the range of reasonable priced wines.
By the way, if you are saying I am a wine wally how is that not nasty?
By the way, this is a forum not a personal message service. So anyone can comment on posts, and on replies to posts. That’s the interest of it.
If you just want to reply to Michael then send a private message.
I said a couple of weeks ago that all you people or most of them on this forum can do nothing but moan about the UK or bitch about something or other.
I am making a personal opinion to the guy that made the original post and I offered genuine friendly constructive advice to the poor soul because I understand his confusion.
I am sick and tired of wallys so please if you cannot be constructive please don’t bother responding to mine.
What the hell has distinguishing between a E50 or E40 bottle wine and mentioning that against reasonably priced wines got to do with my replies to our original poster and any of my comments?
This is what I mean about coming out of the woodwork……it is like Chinese Whispers incorrectly interpreted and misspelte.
Please move on to someone else.
Can everyone stick to comments about wine and not calling each other wallies please.
I confess I’m very much in the camp where a 50€ bottle is largely wasted on me - though I rather like the Super U Saint Emilion Artus des Moines - knowing little about wine I suspect that will mark my card as a complete heathen but I don’t care
We’ve been exploring their VdP/IGP range as well and there are some nicely quaffable ones there - we quite like the Roche Mazet merlot and cabernet sauvignon offerings.
I don’t like this sort of comment, especially when directed at some of the most helpful people on the forum. You must be prepared to be challenged on here without resorting to name calling.
TBH I’d agree that a lot of the best wine gets kept at home where it was produced, or isn’t sold abroad nor very well distributed.
When I’m not trying to find wines without a mushroomy odour in Burgundy I’ve often been drinking them near where they’re made… in Italy. I never find the stonking wines I find locally in Italy, anywhere else. In fact it’s rare to find some of them much more than 50km away from where they’re made.
The reasons may be simply small production or enough demand near home. Also big selling and distribution systems, used by the mainstream consumer channels, don’t work well with small volumes and they know selling a niche wonderful wine isn’t going to suit them.
So if you’re buying in the main UK channels, you’re never going to see some stonking wines. But then neither are Romans going to drink some of the lesser known stuff near Alba unless they’re knowledgeable or connected. The Romans might just about get good Tuscans. But that’s due to geography and the volumes available next door in Tuscany (some of which wine is probably Spanish or Portuguese ).
I’m sure it’s the same in France. A good niche wine merchant in Paris or elsewhere will have his own connections though.
However British wine buyers, such as for places like Harrods, Harvey Nicks, Berry Bros & Rudd, other decent wine merchants all over the UK with restaurant or private customers, and, believe it or not, the wine buyers for UK supermarkets, are well known internationally, to be very good indeed at finding good value quality wines in France in particular, and bringing them back for sale in the UK. In the midrange and mid to upper levels of quality, it used to be said finding quality French wines at a good price was easier in the UK than in France.
No idea if this is still true following Brexit, of course. Username34’s comments may indicate this has fallen off a cliff since Brexit… another casualty. I hope not…hic!
In those days, we would visit all sorts of interesting places where some elderly gent was guarding his traditional"still" and producing the most delicious nectar … or small vineyards where every member of the family played some part in the business of wine-making…
To us Brits each was a magical experience… and we happily bought bottles of this and that… as souvenirs… mind you, our car-club pals bought stuff by the case…
Anyway, we took a “souvenir” to our Herblay pal… planning to relive/explain that particular visit with him… which we did eventually… once he’d calmed down…
Well I must be a heathen too as I have found some good wines in Lidl over the years. If its enjoyable to the taste, who cares where it has come from or how little it costs in comparison, most of the time its taken with meals anyway and in some cases, you could get away with drinking paintstripper and not notice.
Ireland is even worse than the UK for taxation on alcohol. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the costs of wines, beers and spirits in an off-licence in Tralee in February. This partly explains (other than historic or cultural issues) why you can generally only find high volume, low quality wine in supermarkets and offys.
I have a feeling that I read/heard somewhere that well-known wines like Mouton Cadet are carefully blended each year… to achieve the same lovely flavour/taste… so that clients are never disappointed.
Of course, certain years have superb harvests, thus those blendings produce an extra special wine… hurrah.
Which is why, other than actually visiting and buying from the place of production, or talking to the local wine merchant when I need to discuss particular likes for offering as a present, I tend to buy my wines from Noz (mentioned in this thread, and elsewhere, I seem to recall). Yes, it can be hit or miss, but that’s part of the learning experience for me, and it is particularly cost effective. It has also opened my eyes to a much broader range of wines that are imported into France, but almost never seen on supermarket shelves.
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Stella:
plod:
Username34:
