Wine in 2021

Sometimes I would like to write on wine again - even without the regular tastings laid on by the trade.

When I did write on it, I belonged to a clique of wine writers who were, at that time, interested mainly on smart and expensive wines for smart and wealthy readers (some still are). Actually, most of us plebeian drinkers were shopping around for drinkable plonk at reasonable prices in those supermarkets that were beginning to offer wine with their other commodities. So I saw a niche as a wine writer, and filled it.

Really good wines for me are a great treat, but like those early times of writing on the subject, when £2 was about the usual price per bottle for recommended wines in my articles and books, I am still on the search for good everyday house wine at a reasonable price. And they are certainly there for those of us who look what's on offer and drink regularly and with pleasure.

I feel that the French have rather overpriced their wines and that their co-operative bottled examples from famous areas do not live up to the grand labels. And for the money asked by the French, I now favour the high quality and much lower priced wines from such as Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa, and now Portugal. 

Aldi is at present our favoured supermarket for wine. Let us hope that they don't become too high-class or greedy.

I am suspicious of the sellers of wine who use the same, plastic branded corks for much of their range. But then I am a bit of a cork fanatic, though I love screw tops. 

All Baloney

 

In 1970, having sold a studio house at the end of Limekiln Dock in Limehouse, London, we needed to cart our selves and a week-old baby, Robert, off to America for my ex-wife to take up a position as Post Doctoral Fellow at Yale.

With air fares sky-high, I looked for an Atlantic crossing by a budget airline (then, in their infancy, through a "bucket shop").

I remember climbing stairs in Lower Regent Street to find a small room where I put a lot of faith, and money at risk, to obtain tickets.

As instructed, we appeared at Gatwick Airport on the allotted day with no idea at all about times, aircraft, airline and much else.

I think an announcement was made, or was it simply word of mouth, summoning us and many lost souls like us, who where hanging around anxiously, to move forward and then to board a Laker Airways 707 bound for New York. (Freddie Laker was then a pioneer in the budget airline business.)

The stewardesses were both charming and efficient. After slinging the baby in a hammock above our seats we set off and arrived safely at New York's La Guardia airport.

With an overworked and poorly paid scientific micro-biologist member in the family, it was my job to run everything else.

Our tiny apartment in New Haven had a large balcony on which I made a most productive garden, using various pots containing subsoil from a local building site and with soiled nappies as fertiliser.

The baby and I needed space in which to play. And in the middle of the town was a grassed square, set among Ivy League university buildings. On the grass I watched as an admiring new father, and Robert learning to crawl.

A large black dog, careering out controle, knocked poor Robert flying. He didn't seem to worry too much and it did not put him off from loving dogs.

Also using the square each day was an ancient old boy (probably of Italian decent) selling balloons. "All baloney", he cried, "all baloney".

He, his ballons, the black dog and Robert in nappies are the subjects of this part of my Autobiography in words and pictures.