Ever find yourself waking up wondering how you got to such an age having mastered so little, while not ticking those Game of Life boxes either? It’s a grim symptom of that old millennial and Gen Z malady, arrested development.
We’re not going to suggest a way to get on the housing ladder or address your (lack of) marital problems here. But we can have a look at one thing that used to be the preserve of sophisticated, legit adults: knowing a little bit about wine.
There’s a way you can have a crack at getting this sort of knowledge squared away in just two hours, with a wine tasting.
These are peppered all over London, in wine merchants and wine schools, who can even guide you to achieve professional wine qualifications if you throw enough cash their way.
I should know, as I spent about a month researching ways to prise myself away from the doldrums of Aldi’s £4.99 Wine of the Week selection, and a continuing existence of vinous mediocrity.
The escape? Berry Bros. & Rudd, a wine merchant. It was founded 327 years ago at the very spot in 3 St James's Street in London where it currently holds its themed wine tastings several times a week.
There are tasting sessions for beginners, those focusing on the wines of Italy or The Loire Valley, right up to lavish dinners with big figures from the wine world. But, to fit the season, we tried a Christmas wine tasting, the stated aim to find something to serve when hosting, perhaps on the big day itself.
From outside, Berry Bros. & Rudd in December looks about as close as you’re going to get to a piece of a Harry Potter movie set transported to Central London. Its ancient-looking front is decked out in oversize Christmas garb, while a coffee grinder shop sign still stands as a mark of its original role as a coffee seller, hundreds of years ago.
Someone with a clipboard and a smile waits to take you down a twinkling fairy light side tunnel, through a hidden-away courtyard with a Christmas tree more resplendent than that of the average town’s Xmas decorations, and you climb down multiple flights of stairs into the ancient bowels of the Berry Bros. & Rudd building.
This is the Pickering Cellar. It’s been around since the 17th century and was once used as a hideout for Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, apparently. But nowadays, on top of the ancient brickwork there’s a boujie glaze of spotlights and touchscreen displays that will eventually tell you about the 10-or-so wines you’ll be drinking. Five rows of wooden 6-spots-a-piece tables fill the space, establishing what is basically the booziest seminar setup you’re likely to experience in the next 12 months.
What awaits: 10 wines, plus an additional welcome glass of English sparkling wine to get you loosened up for the evening. There are Yarlington & Brebis Napoleon cheeses and charcuterie, or cheese and antipasto roasted vegetables for the vegetarians. Plus a spread of olives, bread and savoury cheese Gougeres, in the knowledge a 6:30pm start means many will be heading into the wine journey with stomachs unlined.
The high life: Classing it up in St. James's
And what is the experience actually like? It’s far more a wine-based theme park ride for adults than a dry lecture on refining your tasting skills. Even a palate raised on potato waffles and Heinz ketchup could recognise the twists and turns of the journey you’re taken on here.
Two sparkling wines, two whites, five reds, a dessert wine and a port. There was a Chardonnay that featured nothing of what the wine snobs turn their noses up at in supermarket Chardonnay these days — something to do with being matured in concrete “eggs”, apparently. There was a red wine that tasted more like Christmas than a mince pie. And the only sweet wine I’ve ever drank that I haven’t found actively repellent. Apparently Tokaji can be tasty, not to mention sweeter than Haribo.
It’s an experience you are invited to take as seriously — or not —as you like. And it’s absolutely enhanced by going with someone else if you can. I was lucky enough to come with a far classier friend, the M&S to my cornershop.
She said of one wine “it’s like the Barclay’s commercial where the horses are galloping on the beach, that’s what it feels like when it’s on my palate.” Another was “like fairy sprites dancing on the tongue,” apparently.
On the other hand, you might also find your boyfriend is even more insufferable than you imagined. Or, perhaps worse, end up with someone like me who repeatedly insists one of the red wines both smells and tastes like petrol, likely loud enough for the host to hear.
There’s a reality show twist too. You’ll hear about tasting notes and the history of the various wineries that make the stuff, sure, but you won’t be quizzed on it exam-style. The big reveal — how much each bottle costs — is kept until the end, after everyone has voted on their favourites wine of each type. It is unashamedly all about enjoyment, just as it should be when you pay a small fortune to try a bunch of posh wines.
How expensive are your tastes? Unfortunately, our top pick was a £190 bottle of Bordeaux, the most pricey of the lot. Apparently expensive wines are better after all.
However, it’s the kind of event where you’re invited not to care all that much anyway, typified by host Michael Dabbs’s response when I asked him how he got into this line of work.
“Chance, luck, error, failure, all sorts - depends on which way you look at it,” says Dabbs.
“I studied History and Italian and I went to work on an Italian vineyard when I was at University. Before that I knew nothing about wine, and I didn’t care for it either.… then you realise wine is quite fun as well and it's a career you can have. I’ve been doing this for 14 years now.”
5 expert wine tasting tips
Wine Empire
There are some quite mad numbers behind the Berry Bros. & Rudd enterprise too, as Dabbs explains.
“We look after around about, depending on which day of the week it is, about 12 to 13 million bottles, the value of which is just a shade over two billion pounds.”
You can even buy wines that won’t actually be mature for years yet. Just one example I stumbled upon online won’t be ready until 2029.
But if you’d rather get drinking today, here are a few top wine tips from Berry Bros. & Rudd experiences manager Michael Dabbs.
1. Try a bit of sparkling wine in an oyster
“Osyters are an unbelievable paring with a sparkling wine. It’s almost like having a squeeze of lemon on top of your oyster. In fact, if you pour a little bit of wine instead of some lemon — and certainly instead of Tabasco — you’ll have a perfect pairing.”
2. Ditch champagne flutes if you buy a quality bottle of bubbly
“It’s deserving of proper glassware with a little bit of a bowl shape, not one of those painfully thin flutes, because the little bit of surface area we have in these glasses allows for those aromatics to develop.
“And you will start to taste and smell those complexities a lot more profoundly… I actually prefer to serve — because I’m poncey like this — in a white wine glass at home because it’s even bigger still.
"The one thing you must understand is flutes are designed as they are in order to carry the bubbles a little bit further. The reason wines stay fizzy in these flutes is because they get narrower towards the stem, and it helps keep the bubbles. If you’re not fussed about the bubbles but want to emphasise the quality of the wine and the aromatics, then serve it in a white wine glass.
"If you spend good money on a decent bottle of fizz, give it the glassware it deserves.”
3. Open your wine earlier than you think you should
“Open your wines early. The earlier you do so, the oxygen that gets into the bottle allows the wine to open up and you will smell and taste a lot more."
To hammer home the point, one of the red wines we tasted was opened a good four hours or so before the actual tasting.
4. You can get bargains from fancy Spanish wines
“They do the mad bonkers Spanish thing of making wine in a way that makes no economic sense at all. If you went to Dragon’s Den and said I’m going to make a wine and I’m going to hold it back for 10 years before I release it to the market and I’m not going to sell it cheaply, they’d just laugh you out of the room. But that’s what they did with the 2013 Vina Tondonia Tinto Rioja. It’s that mad Spanish insanity.”
5. Pair an acidic wine with rich foods
"Whenever you’ve got something fatty, rich and decadent, having a bit of acidity to cut through it all is really, really important.
"What doesn't tend to work is a low acid wine with an acidic food. So if you've got something like a tomato or a tomato based sauce, and you put a low acid wine in there, usually the brightness and the intensity of the sauce somewhat kills the wine, and the wine will feel quite dull and a little bit heavy."
You can book one of Berry Bros. & Rudd events from the company's website, with tickets for tasting events similar to the one discussed about starting at £135.
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