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Michael Broadbent |
Michael’s taste test
The taste of wine has changed over the last few decades. We talk to Michael Broadbent, one of the UK’s leading wine experts, to find why
ENGLISH wine writing is focused more on individual preference than on how wines are produced or the influences – economic, historical and cultural – on that process.
When you read about wines, you’re reading recommendations by wine writers (including ourselves) to buy a particular bottle, usually from a supermarket or specialist chain. Questions are seldom raised about how or why one bottle rather than another, is on the shelf.
This wouldn’t be too serious but, because the starting point is never clear, there is no agreed benchmark on which to base our judgements. It is, therefore, surprising that there has been little discussion on how the taste of wines has changed over the last 35 years.
Due to New World technology and, more recently, changes in climate, wines have become sweeter, fruitier and less tannic. But few writers go beyond this. It is also accepted – not entirely accurately in our opinion - that this has been beneficial and is without problems.
Michael Broadbent, who started out as an architect, spans the gulf between the earlier generation of amateur wine writers – Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Ray, John Arlott and Raymond Postgate – and later, fulltime specialists such as Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.
Broadbent is the author of the accessible guide Wine Tasting (Mitchell & Beazley, £9.99) and Wine Vintages (Websters & Christies, £35), the definitive guide to individual vintages stretching all the way back to 1784. He has also written, with Hubrecht Duijker, the Bordeaux Atlas of Wine, the clearest and most thorough guide to one of the world’s most important wine regions.
In our discussion, he made four main points.
n Modern wine writers describe mostly deep coloured, fruit led, easy to drink and easy to appreciate wines priced from £3.99 which don’t give offence. They are quaffable and undemanding, but don’t require the elaboration given to them.
n There isn’t enough awareness of the increase in alcohol. Levels, sometimes rising above 14 per cent, are too tight. They are often no good for food: excessive alcohol kills the tannin, which acts as an anti-oxidant, clearing the palate and cleansing the mouth. Most important, they ignore wine’s function as an aid to digestion.
n Nor does he approve of the fashion for competitions, which favours newcomers over traditional producers. With perhaps 1,000 wines and sixty tasters split into groups, prominence is given to easy to taste wines. Within this context, classic Bordeaux doesn’t have a chance. “Beautiful girls”, Broadbent says, “stay at home”!
Consequently, there is greater uniformity, both within Bordeaux and between it and other regions. This also reflects excessive use of the Merlot grape, encouraged by consultants like Michel Rolland and critics like Robert Parker, whose joint influence has been to encourage a single global taste. Broadbent accepts, however, that Parker has forced many Bordeaux growers to improve standards and given the Rhône and Alsace the attention they deserve.
n As an auctioneer, Broadbent is amazed at the amount of money in the wine market. “What has changed over the last few years,” he says, “is the number of buyers awash with money.”
If there’s a general downturn in western economies next year, this “could disappear” – with catastrophic results.
Up to this point in the conversation, changes in the taste of wine had scarcely arisen. When he started in the 1950s, Broadbent tasted leaner wines, whose tannins were apparent early on, illustrating the benefits of bottle ageing. This can’t be separated from the way wines were produced and sold. Shippers and merchants held substantial stocks, often selling to those prepared to lay them down. Up to the 1960s, English wine merchants imported in barrels, storing and bottling the wines themselves. They knew at least as much about the handling of wine as any French négociant.
This disappeared when Bordeaux prices collapsed in 1972/73. French regulation entered Britain with the European Community in the early 1970s, then the 1973 oil crisis changed relationships radically. These changes and the development of a global market have raised overall standards of wine making, but at a high price.
Wine is not only more uniform: too much of it lacks integration, harmony, complexity, subtlety, typicity (faithfulness to area, nature, tradition and vintage) and fragrance.
Deeper, fleshy, sweeter and more obvious wines are inconsistent with these, the most important qualities of truly great wine.
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