Friday 26 October 2007

Organic frogshit

I have just completed a survey asking my attitudes to all sorts of organic and carbon friendly types of wine. It looks like one of our wine regions wants to go all "carbon neutral" on us, and wants to see what the attitude of the buying public is to all this hoo-ha.

There are very few things that I care about when buying wine.

The main thing is whether it tastes any good. I don't really care where it comes from or how it was made - it could be filtered through the underpants of Peruvian slave goats for all I care, so long as it goes down well and does not provide me with an instant crashing headache.

The second thing is whether it has a cork or a stelvin seal. I won't buy anything with a cork in it these days - not that I care about cork taint. I simply find twist tops so much easier to open, and I live taking a few bottles into a restaurant and being able to get a drink as soon as I sit down. As opposed to waiting half an hour for a dopey waiter to turn up with a cork screw.

The third thing is the price. In my pre-child days, I wouldn't pay less than $15 or $20 for a bottle. Now, I rarely pay more than $10. On the other hand, I seem to drink a lot more of it these days as we now sit down to a family dinner almost every night, and that provides a good excuse to drink a bottle between us. Or maybe half a bottle.

Do I give a toss about environmental friendliness and carbon neutrality and organic-ness? No. Couldn't give a shit. In fact if I see any of that bullshit on the label, I am 99% sure to avoid it like the plague. As soon as a winemaker has to resort to gimmicks like that, it's a sure sign that their wine is not competitive in the normal market.

When it comes to all this wine that has been tainted by political correctness, I just say no.

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