A friend brought round a bottle of 1979 Château Beychevelle the other night, part of a case he’d picked up at auction. It was a bit tired, flabby and past its best – not unlike your correspondent – but still had a certain élan about it, a hint of past glories.
We pondered the vinous landscape of 45 years ago as we sipped, and I realised with a jolt that it was in 1979 that I started in the wine trade, working in Oddbins, Covent Garden, during my vacation. Crikey.
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Liebfraumilch (namely Black Tower and Blue Nun), Mateus Rosé, Bulgarian Cabernet and Chianti in raffia-covered bottles were all the rage. We stocked no English wine, one from Chile and just two from Australia: Wallaby White and Kanga Rouge.
The wines to watch
How times have changed! English wine is everywhere, Chilean wine is mainstream, and we Brits now drink more Australian wine than we do wine from any other country. I wonder what future generations will drink. English wine will have moved on to greater heights, of course, while the Champenois struggle with increasing heat. Not every English producer will survive – it’s a crowded market – but those that do will be making many more still wines rather than just sparkling, including fine Pinot Noir, mainly from Essex.
Portuguese wine will be hugely popular, consumers having finally succumbed to its many charms and understood its obscure grape varieties. The Bordeaux en primeur bubble will have burst. Producers fought to sell their wines this year despite a great vintage and low prices, and climate change is a real worry, hence grapes like the Douro Valley’s sun-loving Touriga Nacional now being a permitted variety in the region and the increased plantings of Malbec.
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Burgundy will battle in the heat, too. Canopy management and irrigation will help, but drinkers could look to California, Chile, Argentina, Australia and even China, Canada and Scandinavia instead.
I worry, though. I’ve two sons in their early twenties. One’s a piss-pot like his parents and the other’s a teetotaller like, well, half his friends. Alcohol consumption among the young is falling, and it could be – dread thought – that future generations will drink nothing at all. We mustn’t let that happen!
Three of the best wines from emerging regions
2021 Schrader Old Sparky Cabernet Sauvignon
(£1,195 per magnum in bond; Fine + Rare)
Napa Valley wines go from strength to strength and this is one of the finest examples. Beckstoffer To Kalon vineyard in Oakville is the sweetest of sweet spots for top-quality Cabernet Sauvignon, with blazing sun during the day and cool maritime fogs during the night, and it’s from where the best barrels are sourced for Old Sparky. An astonishing wine.
2014 Herbert Hall Blanc de Blancs by Kirsty Smith (£90; Herbert Hall)
Only just released, an absolute gem of a wine from a gifted winemaker and a stellar vineyard planted in a former hop garden in Marden, Kent. Made from 100 per cent Chardonnay, fermented and aged in two 400-litre burgundy barrels and matured on the lees for seven years, this is the future: first-class, limited- release sparklers from England to rival the best in the world.
2020 Zuccardi Finca Piedra Infinita
(£145; Lea & Sandeman)
You could be forgiven for thinking the Zuccardi family’s winery in Argentina’s Uco Valley was the lair of a James Bond villain. They make remarkable, wines here such as this, a full, rich, intense, elegant and precise single vineyard Malbec, fermented and aged in concrete and designed to last for decades. It’s destined to
be Argentina’s answer to Bordeaux First Growths.
This feature was first published in Spear’s Magazine Issue 92. Click here to subscribe
