“Think, for a moment, of an almost paper-white glass of liquid, just shot with greeny-gold, just tart on your tongue, full of wild flower scents and spring-water freshness. And think of a burnt-umber fluid, as smooth as syrup in the glass, as fat as butter to smell and sea-deep with strange flavours. Both are wine.
Wine is grape-juice. Every drop of liquid filling so many bottles has been drawn out of the ground by the roots of a vine. All these different drinks have at one time been sap in a stick. It is the first of many strange and some – despite modern research – mysterious circumstances which go to make wine not only the most delicious, but the most fascinating, drink in the world.”
These aren’t my words, of course, but the opening to Hugh Johnson’s seminal tome Wine, a book that is now over four decades old. Those two paragraphs are perhaps as good as any ever put down by a wine writer – a species now widely regarded to be on the endangered list.
There has been a lot written over the last ten days or so about the future of wine writing. Much of it has stemmed from the Kings Cross HQ of the Guardian Media Group which first of all headlined an article by Oliver Thring about Tim Hanni, with whom Bibendum are working at the moment, “Wine critics’ advice is unchallenged bunk”, and then announced that Tim Atkin’s column in The Observer was to be cut down to a short shopping list squeezed in between the recipes and the gardening advice.
Not a good week to be a wine writer.
The Observer’s culling of Tim A’s column is presumably the result of the powers that be assuming that not enough of us are interested. They might be surprised to find close to 1000 people have since joined a Facebook group to Save the Wine Column.
Wine’s complexity and variety lends itself to writing and to reading. Few other consumables have the vocabulary and the body of literature that wine has inspired. The great Andre Simon noted that the poets of every country have sung the praises of wine. Hugh Johnson, in the paragraph that follows the two at the top of this post, wrote that wine “would not be so fascinating if there were not so many different kinds… the whole reason that wine is worth study is its variety.”
I couldn’t agree more. The more you read about wine, study it and involve yourself in it, the better it becomes. Wine is an inexhaustible subject and even a little learning can go a long way to enhancing your enjoyment of what is in your glass. The Observer’s decision to drastically reduce Tim A’s article is a sad one. A short shopping list does no service to the subject, the writer or the reader. They may as well restrict Nigel Slater to a solitary recipe or Eddie Butler to naming the result from the Millennium Stadium, but not the story behind that score. Few people read about wine for a simple recommendation of what to pick up at Tesco’s, we read about it because we are interested in it. Amongst all the tweets, blogs and comments on this subject, Simon Woods hit the nail on the head when he wrote that one of the most important jobs of a wine writer is to inspire. You can’t do that in three short tasting notes.
However, we wine lovers are the minority. There are many more, as Hugh Johnson knew, “who do not care for it, and who think it no more than a nuisance that a wine list has so many names on it”. These people are alienated by the same complexity of wine that draws people like me in. They don’t want to be inspired or to study wine’s intoxicating variety. They want to get intoxicated on something they like, at a price that suits them. People like this will never read a wine column, long or short.
Our survey with Tim H is all about finding new ways to communicate with these consumers. It is not about dumbing down, it is about recognising that a huge number people switch off when we talk about wine and about finding a way of communicating with them that does interest them. With a bit of luck, we can encourage them to try an Albarino or Gruner Veltliner rather than just automatically reaching for the cheapest Pinot Grigio on the shelf.
This isn’t an either/or scenario – there is a need for both Tims. Our work with Tim H is about reaching out to an audience the wine industry has so far failed to engage with. Tim A and other wine writers are needed to inspire, educate and inform those of us who are already converted to the cause.
Both have an important part to play in celebrating and promoting the beauty of what Johnson calls “not only the most delicious, but the most fascinating, drink in the world.”
Find out more about the taste profile survey we created with Tim Hanni
Join the Save the Wine Column group on Facebook
Tags: survey, tim hanni, wine, wine writers