I picked up a copy of Simon Difford’s Class magazine this week. It’s very swish: all bells and whistles but my favourite part of the bartender’s magazine was its Hall of Shame page. Oh, how I laughed: find a crap product and tell people what you think.
Why hasn’t the wine world done that? There’s plenty of rubbish out there that people should be warned off and it’d be a lot more interesting than simply reading about what’s nice. I find it quite refreshing to read honest columns and a ‘What’s Not Hot’ would spice things up a bit.
I’ve also been re-reading Eats Shoots and Leaves this week, a book about the demise of spelling and grammar. Yes I admit it, I’m a stickler. I’ve not had the misfortune to taste any terrible wine this week, so I’m putting the Sussex Wine Company in my Hall of Shame for grammatical reasons. I stumbled across this wine description on their website and it got my goat:
“The Chateau, Lamothe Bergeron, was promoted Cru Middle-class Superior at the time of the revision of the classification of 1932, occurred in June 2003.†Er, I think you might mean Cru Bourgeois and the last bit doesn’t make sense.
“The usual blend is perdominately Cabernet Sauvignon with Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot.†Try spellcheck next time.
I think I might make the Hall of Shame a more regular thing. If you find anything wine-related that is a prime candidate, let me know!
