WINES BY COUNTRY
OF ORIGIN
Australian Wine
Australian
wine started to be imported into Britain in 1870s.
Hazel
Murphy (n e Faulkner) (1948-2019) was a Mancunian who worked for the
Australian Trade Commission in Manchester selling a variety of products. In 1982 she wrote a paper that argued that
wine was the product that had the most potential to generate profits. Three years later she was appointed to be the
Chief Executive of the Australian Wine Bureau and moved to London. At the time the country's wine exports
generated A$1.4m, Britain accounting for 100,000 cases. In the U.K. suffered from a 1972 Monty
Python sketch in which Eric Idle's character had declared that Ch teau
Chunder was grown for those keen on regurgitation.
Murphy
assiduously employed wine tasting in the U.K. while encouraging British wine
critics and masters of wine to visit Australia, a London office was
established. The relative decline of the
Australian dollar to the British pound helped to foster the trade. By the mid-1990s Australian wine was the
leading wine in Britain by volume. In
2002 Australia exported A$897.1 worth of wine, Britain accounting for over 20m
cases.
Website:
https://australianwinecentre.co.uk
Forgetfulness
While
studying at the University of Oxford, Oz Clarke developed an interest in
wine. He and his friend Charles Metcalfe
ended up running its Wine Society.
Following his graduation, he became an actor. He worked in the West End, for the Royal
Shakespeare Company, and at the National Theatre. He retained his interest in wine. He was drafted into the England Wine Tasting
Team. In a contest, the side trounced
its French counterpart. Newspapers
covered the story. The text was
accompanied by a photograph of him dressed as a druid since that was the role
he was then playing at the National Theatre.
In 1982
B.B.C. 2's Food & Wine programme decided to have a live segment in
which a wine expert would try to identify a wine in front of a studio audience
in a blind tasting. The person who was
booked to do it dropped out at short notice.
The show's producer, Peter Bazalgette, had seen the newspaper story and
decided to call on Clarke to fill the slot.
The thespian embraced the opportunity.
In the
studio the audience were informed of what the wine was by means of a large
board. Clarke was unable to see what was
written on it. When he was presented
with the glass, by pure happenstance, its colour and fragrance enabled him to
identify its contents as an Australian chardonnay, of which only two varieties
were then being sold in the U.K.. Rather
than state the answer straight away, he drew upon his experience of pantomime
and street theatre to play the audience.
He remarked the beverage seem as though it must come from somewhere
hot. The audience tittered. He then said that much of Europe was
hot. The audience was absolutely silent. But then so too was Australia he
declared. The audience tittered again.
Finally,
he declared that it must be Tyrrell's Vat 47 Chardonnay from the Hunter Valley
near Sydney in Australia and that it cost 5.99 from Waitrose s. The audience erupted in rapturous
appreciation. After the show had
finished, Bazalgette declared to Clarke that he had never known that wine
tasting could be showbiz and invited him to become a regular on the next
series. The offer was accepted with
alacrity. There was only one thing
stated the producer. What was that?
asked the actor. You forgot to taste
the wine. 1
Location:
Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, W12 7FW
1. Clarke was to be one of Food &
Drink's co-hosts until the show ended in 2002, becoming a nationally known
figure in the process.
French Wine
For
much of the Middle Ages large portions of western France were ruled by English
kings. As a result, the wines of these
regions became much better known in England than those from other parts of
France.
In
Britain claret1 is taken to be a dark red wine from the Bordeaux
region, whereas in French clairet refers to a light or clear wine. The word transferred to the clairet wines of
Bordeaux, which, in turn, broadened to the region's wines, which, in turn,
contracted to its red wines.
See
Also: CHAMPAGNE
1. Claret is a slang word for blood.
British
French Wine
Tom
Jago (1925-2018) devised the Le Piat d Or wine brand to sell French wine to
British drinkers. It was launched in
1978.
Placenames
The
Royal in the name of the Sir Christopher Wren-designed City of London church
St Michael Paternoster Royal (1694) is a corruption of the French placename La
Reole. The La Reole region near Bordeaux
was the source of much of the wine that the parish's vintners had imported.
Location:
College
Hill, EC4R 2RL (purple, blue)
Portuguese Wine
The
journey of Portuguese wine to Britain usually included the Bay of Biscay which
often proved to be an instance of rough sailing. They took to adding brandy to wine in order
to help stabilise it.
Sherry
The
Sherry Institute of Spain
The
Sherry Institute of Spain furnishes the Poet Laureate with her/his sherry.
David
Backhouse 2024