Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart's latest selection for the month of August People sometimes ask me about those ads you see in magazines and the weekend papers. ‘Get £89.95 worth of wine for just £49.95! Our introductory offer brings you twelve superb wines for barely more than half price...’ How do they do it? Easy. The great majority of the wines are ‘exclusives’ which means that the company has bought up the entire production of a winery. They can then list the stuff at whatever notional price they like, and base the so-called saving on that. It’s as if I were to write to the editor of The Spectator and say: ‘Yes, get an article worth £350 for only £200!

There is something wonderful about this time of year, when fairly often the sun is shining. We make British, mock-rueful remarks to each other: ‘Yesterday was summer, I suppose!’ or ‘Well, if this is global warming, let’s have more!’ Sometimes we even have spells when we find it uncomfortably hot, days when there is no greater imaginable treat than getting home from work, sitting outside and pouring a glass of something cold and delicious. And there are some delicious wines here from the admirable Adnams of Southwold. I’ve chosen several because they’re perfect for outdoor summer drinking, though I hope you’ll try them all.

Criminal Justice (BBC1); Celebrity Masterchef (BBC1); Marco's Great British Feast (Channel 4)  Years ago I was ‘political consultant’ on State of Play, the successful BBC drama serial that got very substantial ratings. It launched several acting careers, being one of the few TV series that was also watched by the people who make films. About half my advice was ignored, to the delight of colleagues at Westminster who would ask how I managed to get something so spectacularly wrong. But the producers were right; dramatic effect is more important than nit-picking detail. And to be truly, nerve-shreddingly realistic, you have to ignore reality. Real life is usually rather dull; to be convincing as reality, realism is not enough.

This week brings a welcome return of The Vintry, a sort of co-operative of wine-lovers who use communal buying to reduce prices. They then hold tastings in their own homes. If you’re lucky enough to live near one, you can sample and buy their wine on the spot, or they’ll deliver locally. Martin Knight, the ringmaster, is giving Spectator readers, wherever they live, free delivery for this offer (fuel prices mean that the cost of carriage is increasingly a nightmare; I only hope that we can offer free delivery for a while yet). And the wines, all French, are very good indeed. The Domaine Rives-Blanques Chardonnay 2006 (1) from Limoux, where the famous sparkling Blanquette comes from, is gorgeous.

A visit to the London International Wine Fair is, paradoxically, a sobering experience. With about 30,000 different wines on show, it is impossible to sample more than a minuscule number — the worst anyone can be accused of is binge-sipping. The stallholders want you to try all their wines, even if there are a dozen of them. My technique: ‘I’m in a great hurry. Let me try your best wine’, was usually met by ‘All ours are excellent. Now, I will start at the beginning...’ I acquired a list of all the best-selling — by value — alcoholic drinks in the UK. You may be surprised to learn that the top booze brand of all is Stella Artois, on which we spend an average £10 million a week.

The Loire produces wonderful wines for summer. Perhaps it’s holidays in July and August, driving from château to château, past the slow reaches of the river and green meadows almost yellow from the sun. Baguettes and pâté under the willow trees.... Actually that may be a figment of my unreliable memory. But the wines really are crisp, refreshing and lively, as well as having plenty of body. Lay in supplies so that your al fresco meals will be even more delightful. And less expensive too. The Loire had the same crummy summer we did last year, but, like us, they did get sun in spring and autumn. Most — though not all — wines were better than rescued, though prices went up.

I’ve been reading an intriguing article by Miles Thomas in the Psychologist magazine. It’s called ‘On Vines and Minds’, and it discusses many of the ways in which our brains determine the experience of drinking wine. I’ve been reading an intriguing article by Miles Thomas in the Psychologist magazine. It’s called ‘On Vines and Minds’, and it discusses many of the ways in which our brains determine the experience of drinking wine. For instance, appearances are important — uncomfortably important. Even experts, offered a white wine tinted with a neutral red dye, will often describe it in the way they might talk about a real red wine.

So it’s goodbye to Foyle’s War (Sunday, ITV), for the time being at least. The series seems to have been cancelled not because it was no good; it was, for a TV ’tec drama, superb. Nor because it had poor ratings — they were huge for today’s crowded television schedules. The reason seems to be that it had the wrong kind of viewers, people who remembered the war or, increasingly these days, people who were born to people who remembered the war. It is a given of marketing that the young are the only target advertisers should bother to attract, since they are deemed to flit from brand to brand like binge-drinking butterflies. Older people are presumed to be set in their ways. No doubt some are.

I’m just back from the United States where the local wine is ridiculously expensive, apart from the ridiculously cheap, and you wouldn’t want to drink an awful lot of that, since Diet Coke may be more subtle. I’m just back from the United States where the local wine is ridiculously expensive, apart from the ridiculously cheap, and you wouldn’t want to drink an awful lot of that, since Diet Coke may be more subtle. The best Californian wine is superb, and priced to match. At the huge California tasting in London I tried a Cabernet Sauvignon which I thought first-rate. I asked the price. ‘Around 90 of your British pounds,’ the owner said. ‘That’s astonishing,’ I said. ‘Only £90 a case?

The budget has hit wine merchants and drinkers quite hard. Those of us who like a sophisticated slurp are paying the price for those who drink themselves senseless on Friday and Saturday nights, and turn our town centres into a hellish version of the passagio. But it is important to keep standards up. If we can’t drink as much, at least what we do drink should be worth drinking. One way to manage this is to buy wine through a company called FromVineyardsDirect.com. It’s run by an enterprising publisher, David Campbell, who relaunched Everyman Books in 1991 to the same principle — the best, but at affordable prices. His partner is Esme Johnstone, one of the founders of Majestic. As the name implies, they buy their wines straight from the makers.

This month we feature luxurious wines from France — some well-known, others which deserve to become much better known. This month we feature luxurious wines from France — some well-known, others which deserve to become much better known. They’re from Yapp Brothers in Wiltshire. The celebrated Robin Yapp, who founded the firm, and his son Jason Yapp, who is now running it, have always taken great delight in fossicking out wines from small vineyards in the Loire and southern France. Their idea of joy is to go off the motorways, off the side roads and onto a dirt track, at the end of which is a gnarled old vigneron who welcomes them with home-cured ham, local cheeses and an amazingly delicious wine.

Time for our annual offer of Château Musar from the excellent folk at Wheeler Cellars, sister company to Lay & Wheeler. Time for our annual offer of Château Musar from the excellent folk at Wheeler Cellars, sister company to Lay & Wheeler. Once again you have the chance to place your order for the luscious new 2001 vintage Musar red (1), which becomes more popular every year. Old fans will know what to expect; new drinkers will savour that full, deep, leathery, smoky, perfumed richness — and of course the cedar notes — not surprising in a wine from Lebanon. I am also a lover of the white (2), which is slightly unusual, being made from two local Lebanese grapes. It seems to taste of cream, lemon and apples, so I think of it as a liquid tarte tatin.