Confessions of a Wino

If you are at the intersection of wine and social media, then you were probably at EWBC 2010 in Vienna this October.

It’s a diverse and eclectic group of folk: Wine-makers, journalists, blog authors, wine educators, PR people, sponsors.  All have their own reasons for attending.  Mine are manifold but the two most important are to meet really interesting people and to learn about really interesting wines.

Partly due to my own ignorance, and partly due to the lack of wines available in the UK, Austria has been a bit of a blind spot for me. The best I could say of most Austrian wines is that they broke the spellchecker.  However, in a 3 day blitzkrieg of wine tastings I learnt that Austria has so much more to offer the world than Grüner Veltliner (not that ‘Gruvee’ itself is boring or ubiquitous).

I write this to capture a few favourites and, if I may, offer a few suggestions to the rare few amongst you with even less Austrian wine experience than me. These were some of the wines that torpedoed my subs…

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If I had grown a micron for every penis extension product I have been offered by email in the last 12 months, I would now have King Dong trembling in flaccid anxiety.

Equally, offers for Viagra, “Rolex” watches, non-study MBAs and Nigerian dollar inheritances are starting to wear a bit thin.

Domæne Gobelsburg, 2008 is made from the “latest grape”, Grüner Veltliner.  Trouble is, I have been hearing this for yonks.  Who cares?

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The fully loaded cost of employing a call centre agent in the UK is about £20 to £25k per annus horribilis.  Off-shoring to India typically cuts the cost per head to £8 to £12k.  Many argue that the quality is not as high, and that cultural divisions make the customer experience a bit dodgy.  I think that if the process is simple, and the off-shore agent has proper access to the company’s computer systems then there is a place for off-shoring simple human contact processes.  However, like everyone else in the UK I can tell numerous tales of horrific experiences, trying to get through to “Dave” at my local Indian call centre.

According to a straw poll of my wine rack, the average price of a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is about £10 but this Indian one from Sula Vineyards, Nashik Estate was only £7.49.  Does this cost advantage represent a simple process done with cheaper labour, or a quality Hammer House of Horror?

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As 2008 races towards us faster than an over-indulgent party reveller to the big white telephone, it’s time to take stock of the year just gone.  My 2007 new year resolution was to lose a stone in 3 months.  For non-British readers that is 14 pounds, or 6.35029318 kilos.

I’ve always been a slow starter but I can be a determined sod, and I finally made my target on 23 December 2007 after watching a weight chart that was broadly directly proportional to the Dow Jones and FTSE indices.  I am still surprised I actually made it at all, but a bigger surprise this year was the discovery of a new wine.  Not because it was a discovery to anyone but me, simply that I was the last person on earth to encounter it.  The wine is known by many as Gru Vee and I thought I’d close this year on a decent, inexpensive example of the genre.

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I went to The Ivy for lunch yesterday and whilst the food and service was impeccable, we were hounded off our table.

Arriving 11:55 for our 12:0pm table we had to queue outside whilst the staff were briefed. Eventually by 12:10 we were seated and ordered as quickly as allowed. We ate as quickly as one could reasonably be expected to eat without incurring indigestion.

At 1:20pm the Ivy Gestapo kindly permitted us to order a “quick” dessert or coffee, and leave.  The Obergruppenführer waiter tried to look suitably embarassed but failed miserably.  We were then encouraged, cajoled, and finally pressed to make our exit.

It’s a shame really when this sort of place leaves a slight tinge on an otherwise superb experience.  But I don’t want to be rude to my hosts so I won’t complain any further.

The oysters were legendary.  The Ivy Hamburger perfectly rare.  The Grüner Veltliner extremely competent, and the coffee (macchiato of course) not bad, despite the rush.

Although not of the Catholic faith, I feel the need to confess.  To you.  I have sinned.  I am guilty as charged.  What is my heinous crime so dark and mysterious?  I am a beginner.  No, really! At everything?  Truly, everything!

Maybe it’s an age thing.  I love my job and pretend that I know lots about enterprise software but the truth is that every year that passes I double my knowledge on that subject.  At that rate of acceleration, it makes me realise how little I actually know.  For example, if my knowledge keeps doubling every year, then in ten years time I will know 1024 times more than I know right now.  That proves that I know virtually nothing.  And so it is with wine, my other “specialist” subject.

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Now I don’t want to be accused of bias.  I buy wine from all over the place, but to be honest Tesco is normally bottom of my list despite it being the location of choice for most of our grocery shopping.

So in the interests of giving it a fair hearing, I recently purchased a couple of sample bottles, the first of which I will review here.

£6.99 for a Grüner Veltliner seems a good deal.  Tesco’s offering was “Singing” Grüner Veltliner from Laurenz und Sophie.

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I haven’t managed to get a ticket to see Connie in the hottest show in town just yet.  Connie Fisher’s prize for winning a BBC talent contest was the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic at the London Palladium.

But I thought I would get in the mood anyway by trying an Austrian wine whose reputation seems to be growing faster than The Sound of Music revenues.

My Grüner Veltliner came from the Wine Society’s “Exhibition” Range.

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