Confessions of a Wino

I really don’t see the need for super heavyweight wine bottles. Why create unnecessary and excess baggage when exporting cases around the world? I feel the same way about alcohol. What’s the point of more than 13% unless it really adds value to the flavour of a wine? Finally, over-elaborate marketing to increase the price. I don’t like that in any field. Please just be honest and stop using flowery self-indulgent language on the back of the bottle.

Although quite tasty, this wine breaks all three barriers in Spades, putting in doubt the authenticity. One of the beauties of the arrogant diffidence of the French is that they rarely, if ever, fall into these traps. So, I’m going to leave it alone. If you feel the need for waste, you can remit £29 to The Sunday Times Wine Club (Laithwaites) and they will send you a bottle.

Spending a weekend in Brescia at the European Wine Bloggers Conference, seemed a pretty good way to try to fill in some of the blind spots in my wine knowledge, namely, pretty much all Italian wine.

But due to “real” work commitments I was unable to attend any of the post conference trips, the most appealing of which was Chianti.

I can stare longingly at a wine map, kindly donated by Steve De Long. I can laugh wryly at the treatment afforded to Jim Budd (a man so straight-talking his words are delivered on EU approved cucumbers) in his communications with a renowned Chianti producer. But right now, the closest I can get to saying I was there is by drinking a bottle that I procured from Sunday Times Wine Club (Laithwaites), en primeur, for about £16.

Like many indicters, I might allege that Italian red wine is all too often over-tannic for my tastes and this one plays up to my prejudices. However, on the plus side, there are punnets of blackcurrants, baskets of cherries and bright acidity that lasts in the mouth like a 24h menthol mouthwash (in a good way!).

This wine is young, of course. But I think relations between Baron Ricasoli and J.Budd Esq. will have thawed long before this wine’s tannins are soft enough for me to really enjoy it.

If you are into this type of wine, surely it would be magnificent with a hunk of rare red meat and a big bowl of salty French fries.

Well at first sight, you have to admire a man with cojones the size of decanters.  Rowan Gormley, not content with taking on the mighty Direct Wines (owners of the Laithwaites and Virgin Wines brands) at selling wine, is now considering a legal defence in the light of a provocative press release that Rowan put out on behalf of Naked Wines to which DW took offence.  Offence that was duly passed to their lawyers who promptly threatened to sue his ass.

Rowan’s blog offers the viewpoint of a man on one side of an argument that is undeniably exacerbated by the fact that the Virgin Wines founder left the employ of Direct Wines last summer under a compromise agreement (another word for a cloud).  The word “bollocks” is used to dismiss Direct Wines’ allegations.  Maybe storm in a teacup is better phraseology.

But before you dismiss this as a spat between two former lovers and tell them to grow up and get a life, be aware that this is a business tactic straight from the Virgin playbook (remember Virgin Atlantic/Richard Branson’s long term, bitter and very public fight with BA for example?).  Rowan certainly learned something from his years at Virgin.

Naked Wines needs publicity and hasn’t got a big advertising budget.  If I were Direct Wines, I would shut up and get on with running a successful business and starve Naked of PR oxygen.  Every time they react to one of Gormley’s prods they are adding fuel to his fire.

On the other hand, if I were Rowan Gormley, I would probably continue to aggravate my former employer and provoke whatever reaction I could.  The general public loves an underdog, especially one that looks like it is being grievously mistreated by the older school bully.