Oh Yes, please burn rubbish under my nose...

It is perfectly safe. It will include medical and industrial waste, plus the odd tyre or two which will slip through into the furnace without us knowing, along with the occasional gas cylinder. It will emit (among many other unpleasant things including dioxins) particulate smoke particles under 2.5 microns in diameter -which cannot be filtered out using current technology- and which can enter the bloodstream directly, causing ill health. Still perfectly safe...

That is what we are being told here in south London where 4 local councils (Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton) have decided to team up to look after their (our) rubbish. It's too hard for us to recycle and they are running out of room at the local landfill at Beddington so the solution is to burn it all in an incinerator.

Their friends at Viridor have offered to build this for them on their land at Beddington where they currently operate the landfill, composting etc.

Of course, as we will be recycling more and more (not so hard then ?) they will need to bring in more rubbish from farther afield to make it worth their while. So instead of the landfill being closed and returned to nature in a few years time, an incinerator will be burning for the next 30 to 40 years and directly polluting large surrounding stretches of London extending to Streatham and Beckenham for example.

Of course they (Croydon, Kingston and Sutton) have already signed a 'chosen partner' contract with Viridor which commits to the building of the incinerator despite the fact that no planning permission (dealt with by Sutton Council as the plant is on its patch) has yet been granted...There is of course a lot of money involved (almost £1 billion), hence the more than 600 pages of documentation supporting the 'proposal', swearing blind that there will be no effect whatsoever produced by this 'energy recovery facility'.

It would seem therefore that planning permission has already been tacitly granted and that any public consultation is now only for show.

Everyone living east of Sutton should be aware of the potential dioxin cocktail this Council has in store for them and oppose their plans.

For more information see Stop the South London Incinerator Campaign

Grape futures (10)

Yes, this is it, the moment we've been waiting for.

 It's the great Grape Harvest.

Well, perhaps not so great, as it's only a few bunches.

The fruit, however, is in perfect condition, with good sugar levels (determined only organoleptically as explained previously), some acidity, with a hint of tannin in the berry.

All in all, just right for making a drop of wine.

The next steps can be seen in the next instalment.

Foraged Fruit

This is a view of some Plums/Mirabelles growing wild nearby that I picked a few days ago.

They are so delicious either to eat straight off the tree, or in the form of a delicious tart as shown below.

Thanks to Rowley Leigh (Café Anglais) for the pastry base recipe.

Potato Harvest (2)

Lifted the potatoes (Rattes, Rooster, King Edward) yesterday. They are now all safely stored away in hessian sacks (along with the Charlottes) to be enjoyed over the coming months.

Top of the Pops 1976 (and what wine were we drinking ?)

Sat watching TOTP 2 on BBC television recently as a respite from the omnipresent Olympics. An episode from 1976.

I mused that around that time music (by which I mean 'popular' music) was such a great part of life for everyone, or so it seemed.

NME was required reading for any serious person. John Peel was listened to religiously. Top of the Pops was never missed, no matter what the circumstances.

Record collections were examined, played and commented on by anyone who happened to come round.

The sound was much better. None of those stupid earpieces or heaven help us headphones (how silly they look walking around festooned with such audio appendages).

Is this just silly nostalgia, or is there any substance to this ?

Examining the charts of 1976 one finds all sorts of material ranging from albums Dark Side of the Moon (Pinkfloyd) and A Night at the Opera (Queen), to singles I am a Cider Drinker (The Wurzels) and Save Your Kisses for Me (Brotherhood of Man)

Looking back it is easy to see that musical offerings (no reference intended to J.S. Bach or Schoenberg) ranged from the sublime to the...well I'm not sure how to describe them.

As for the wines... What would you have been supping while listening to your favourite track ?

British or Irish wine (yes, made from imported grape juice - can't remember the brand names - apart from Rheingau-  but they were rough, to say the least), Matteus Rose, Piat du Beaujolais, Sauternes at Christmas, not forgetting Blue Nun. Or perhaps not. You might not even have drunk any of this stuff at all, except at parties.

Mostly you could say that widely available wines (i.e. not from specialist merchants) were fairly unremarkable, indeed sometimes downright bad. It would have been more or less the same in France and other winemaking countries too.

Whereas music may have deteriorated since 1976 (and this is an entirely personal and subjective view), the choice and quality of wine now available has improved immeasurably, even miraculously, to attain a golden age undreamed of then.

To what do we owe this flowering of the viticultural and winemaking arts ?

There is no simple answer. I do however think that this is largely due to the improvement in the wine knowledge and experience of the 'average' wine drinker and the knowledge, viticultural and scientific of the winemakers.

Wine drinkers are exposed to many different wines in restaurants, supermarkets, on holiday and have developed a taste for good drinkable wines. Result: a demand for good drinkable wines.

Winemakers large and small are much better equipped both intellectually and technologically to cope with most things nature can throw at them and know precisely what they are doing and why. Result: good drinkable wines.

Another factor is that people have more money in their pockets than in 1976 and the relative price of a bottle of wine has fallen considerably, despite increases in duty (in the UK). Without adjusting for purchasing power something costing £1 in 1976 would now cost £6.61; if you earned £1 in 1976, you would now earn £14.84. So according to this simple arithmetic prices have increased by 6 times but incomes have gone up by almost 15 times.

Wine is now affordable for most people, and wine producers know this.

I am sure there are many other factors at work but the upshot is that we were not drinking very pleasant wines in 1976 and I do not look back on this period as a lost paradise, except perhaps for some of the music.

Rosé wine and grapefruit anyone ?

Rosé wine and Grapefruit mix drinks can now be found in French supermarkets and are sold as low alcohol flavoured 'fruit wines' or aperitifs.

I suppose I am a bit of a grumpy old man, but I find the whole idea abhorrent.

There is nothing wrong with grapefruit juice per se. Many rosé wines have much to recommend them. But the thought of mixing the two and bottling them is simply too much.

The resulting mixture (which I do not wish to name) is sickly and stuffed full of sulphur dioxide and is very likely to leave you with a splitting headache if you are unlucky enough to drink too much of it. There is the small matter of the 7% ABV also. Too low for the elixir to be called wine, but enough to seriously intoxicate the unwary.

If you are feeling particularly adventurous or foolhardy you can sample a sparkling version. You can then move on to peach, lime, blackberry, raspberry etc

No doubt this is a new form of wine marketing because the traditional producer/terroir/tradition model means nothing to young 'consumers'.

It is sad to see in a country with so many grape varieties, wine regions and traditions, where it would not be too difficult to find a traditionally made wine with a similar flavour profile to this concoction, and none of the drawbacks.

The greatest crime is probably the attempt to convince people that this is in fact wine when it has nothing to do with it. Although it may perhaps come to pass that upon tasting this, people will seek solace in wine or any other sort of traditional drink.

It is a similar sort of debate to the one opposing British Wine (which is not necessarily wine and definitely not British, being made from imported grape must with various permitted additions from, among other things, different fruit) to English or Welsh wine, which most definitely are wines and produced in this country.

Authenticity versus the 'creations' of marketing people and people who want to make a profit above all else.

Translation and wine tasting shorthand

This is a short piece I wrote for a weekly note on my professional site.

I remembered it because of a reader's letter on tasting terminology in Decanter Sept 2012 (Ask Decanter p102). Gillian Hill wanted to know what 'lift' or 'lifted' and 'flabby' meant in relation to wine tasting, and I was put in mind of the sort of sensory shorthand we use to describe wine.


This week, a few thoughts from the world of wine description.

We often tend to find the same descriptors being used again and again in wine tasting notes. The terms used are often related to the smell and taste of fruits, flowers, spices and other aromas which the experienced taster (or more accurately perhaps, smeller) may be able to detect in the wine being tasted.

The WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) Systematic Approach to tasting lists around one hundred aroma and flavour characteristics useful in describing the particular organoleptic profile of a wine.

Tasters, however, often resort to a type of shorthand to rapidly give a succinct indication in their tasting notes of how a wine will taste to the average consumer and some flavours or aromas will be encountered more often. This will often vary according to the origin, national or linguistic, of the author.

In English-speaking circles there is often mention of ‘blueberries’ or ‘blackberries’; whereas the French will often plump for ‘cassis’ (blackcurrant). Floral aromas will often be described as being of ‘elderflower’ by anglophones whereas ‘acacia’ will often be used by French-speakers.

This is typical of the way different languages will divide up the visible and invisible universe in order to describe it. This goes for colour and sound as well as for taste and smell. One man’s yellow is another man’s brown or red. Yet the actual colour is the same.  

Translation, therefore, can also be a game of taste and smell and finding appropriate ways of accurately communicating the equivalent perception in the other language.

Grape Futures (9)

Are the grapes swelling a little ? With a bit of luck they might be, as being Grenache, they should be a little bigger.

They are already sweet, and will no doubt get sweeter over the next few days.

Another ripeness evaluation might be the wasp test to determine if they are fully ripe. Wasps are very partial to grapes.

Finally I think it will be the greenness or lack of it of the stalk which will determine full ripeness. So another few days to wait.

Frankenstein organics is born

Unheralded and unnoticed, August 1st saw the birth of factory organics in wine. Of course most of us are too engrossed in the Olympics or whatever to have paid much attention.

What am I talking about ? The coming into force of the European directive on organic wine of course !

These new rules relating to organic wine were published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 8th March 2012 and are applicable as of August 1st 2012 (European Commission (CE) n° 203/2012).

It is now possible for a producer adhering to these new rules to label his wine as being organic, and not just 'produced from organically farmed grapes' as previously.

What is the difference and what are the possible consequences ? Well, to get an idea I will let you read the recent editorial from Le Rouge et le Blanc (no 105 Summer 2012), a French language periodical which specialises in what one might call 'real wine produced by real people'. I have translated this for you.

'Organics up for grabs


Organic agriculture, which used to raise knowing smiles before making a lot of people wince, has now become what the kings of marketing describe as a niche market. It is a niche which requires investment, because it is expanding. As for organic producers, having previously been out in the cold, they have now been invited to the party.


In a nutshell, through the new European rules adopted on 8th February and which come into force on the 1st August 2012, large wine producers and brokers (négociants) have succeeded in transforming ‘wine from grapes produced by organic agriculture’ as it has been known until now, into ‘organic wine’, with very relaxed wine making rules perfectly suiting their own production methods.


We already knew they wanted to have their cake and eat it, now they are after the baker’s wife too. How can that be the case ? The rules of organic agriculture have been maintained of course, and added to them are new measures such as the banning of sorbic acid and desulphuring, and the limiting of concentrations of added sulphites (1). But there is nothing new about harvesting methods, nothing new about use of yeasts, nothing about ‘thermovinification‘ (up to 70C) or about reverse osmosis....


‘There is now practically no difference between organic and conventional wines’ declared Michel Issaly, president of the influential confédération des Vignerons indépendants (Confederation of Independent Wine Producers). Mass market organic wine is born, and it has no particular respect for the living nature of wine.


This strategy increasingly marginalises those who have for a long time already been going much further quality-wise than simply ‘organic’. Those - ‘natural’ producers and others- who daily find themselves pushed out of the AOC door towards the emergency exit marked Vin de Table (or Vin de France...sounds much nicer!)...


The France of these wines is the one that defends with the greatest coherence and quality true wines of terroir. Some way must be found to make a real differentiation, in the vein of those winemakers working with amphorae (see Rouge & le Blanc no 105 p.38) who adhere to strict guidelines in terms of viticulture, winemaking and maturation in order to thwart any attempt at vulgar imitation which would allow the proliferation of false labels of vaguely ‘amphora’ wine.


‘Les idées s’améliorent. Le sens des mots y participe.’ (2)


François Morel


(1)Additions reduced by 30 to 50 mg/litre compared to non-organic wines, according to their residual sugar content: for reds 100mg/litre of SO2 instead of 150; for whites and rosés 150mg/litre of SO2 instead of 200...
(2)Lautréaumont, Poésies II.'

Le Rouge et le Blanc


Is this the opportunity 'natural' wine producers have been waiting for ? Perhaps.

There is also the new directive on allergen labelling which will force producers to come clean on some additives, such as fining agents.

Of course this does not go far enough - labelling showing a complete list of additives would be more appropriate, but it is a start.

Midweek supper wines

I couldn't help laughing (out loud I might add) at the editorial in the September 2012 issue of Decanter.

Guy Woodward writes blithely of 'those midweek supper wines of £15-20', advising us to read the article by Oz Clarke on the 'new' Bordeaux wines now offering good value.

I don't know who Mark has his midweek suppers with, but my own midweek supper wine budget is around the £5 mark. I am sure that says more about me than I would care to admit.

I have written about these wines in my occasional series 'Everyday Drinkers'. So far none have been from Bordeaux. But then again I limit my search for these value for money wines to local supermarkets, there being no wine merchant nearby.

That is not to say that Bordeaux does not offer value at anything under the £15-20 mark. I have personally sampled many excellent wines from this region at around £10 or less.

I just wonder if it is worth spending the extra fiver for a midweek supper.

Decanter website