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Malcolm Gluck says English sparkling wine is inferior to Champagne |
Gluck has a pop at the ‘amateurs’ of England
Critic Malcolm Gluck has become embroiled in a war of words after domestic producers came out on top at the International Wine Challenge
PERHAPS it was the persistent rainy weather or maybe the lack of decent, free to the press, wine tastings. Whatever, June has seen the birth and rapid growth of a bad-tempered quarrel within the wine-tasting community.
The genteel world of wine writing is occasionally rocked by a row. The most famous of recent times being the clash between the world’s No1 writer, the American Robert Parker, and Britain’s Jancis Robinson.
Jancis had queried the great man’s rating of a top Bordeaux wine. He was not amused! In turn he questioned the integrity of Limey wine writers. He had never met one who didn’t have a commercial tie-in, he thundered.
The latest ruckus began with a condemnation by Malcolm Gluck – the Guardian’s ex-wine columnist – of a piece in that paper, highlighting the growing international success of English wines.
Gluck rubbished the article and questioned the International Wine Challenge, a London-based annual competition that had awarded medals to 21 English wines.
One English sparkling wine was awarded a coveted gold medal, ahead of several Champagnes, some from very famous houses.
This, Gluck wrote, was nonsense. Most English wine tasted awful, was made by amateurs and should not be compared with professionally produced Champagnes, he said.
The Observer’s wine guru, Tim Atkins, co-chairman of the offending International Wine Challenge, was quick to respond.
The challenge, he explained, involved thousands of wines, tasted blind, by hundreds of judges from all over the wine-producing world.
He challenged Gluck to a blind-tasting of four English sparkling wines, against four Champagnes.
If Gluck could tell which was which, Atkins would donate £500 to the ex-Guardian man’s favourite charity.
Gluck, so far, has declined to take the test.
Soon, the conflict spread from the pages of the Guardian to BBC Radio 4 and then turned vicious in the trade journals of the drinks industry.
Gluck was a desperate publicity seeker, wrote Atkins, in Off Licence News.
An angry Gluck, harping back to Robert Parker’s criticism of English wine writers, suggested that he should do the decent thing and resign from the Observer.
As the month progressed, more and more top names became involved on one side or the other – most were anti-Gluck.
The combatants included the great and the good from all the constituent parts of the British drinks industry, including several of the nation’s top wine writers.
By the end of last week, Gluck appeared to have been hammered by the sheer weight of the numbers and professional standing of those lined up against him.
This is not the first time Malcolm Gluck has baited and berated his fellow wine professionals. Last January, writing in Waitrose Food Illustrated, he cleverly made use of his opponents’ love of textile metaphors to describe wine – velvety, silky etc.
Doubling up on the metaphors, he accused them of “using flannel to pull the wool over their readers’ eyes”.
And the wine that caused all the fuss was Denbies Sparkling Cuvée Greenfields, 2003, £18.99.
“It’s utterly revolting, a total failure,” Gluck wrote in the Guardian on June 7.
And the latest on the big row? International Wine Challenge judges have tasted this wine yet again and upgraded its status from a gold medal winner to a trophy wine – their top award. The 2003 appears to be sold out, but some larger Waitrose stores have bottles of the 2004 vintage – a blend of the Champagne grapes, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunierat for the same price.
Visit www.denbiesvine yard.co.uk |
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