[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 1: Quite
simply, Jancis is
one of the most respected
wine writers and wine critics
in the world today.
She's been writing about
wine for more than 40 years.
She writes daily for her
website, JancisRobinson.com.
She's the FT's
wine correspondent
and has written more
than 20 books about wine.
In 1984, she was the
first person outside
of the wine trade to become
a master of wine, which
is quite a tough thing to do.
And she sits on the Royal
Household Wine Committee,
where she chooses
wine for the queen.
And she was also awarded
an OBE for her services
to the wine industry.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
That's brilliant.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 1: It's just
a brief summary.
JANCIS ROBINSON: But it's
accurate, which is amazing.
SPEAKER 1: And today she's
here to talk about her latest
book, which is "The
24-Hour Wine Expert,"
and also an online
course on a platform
called Udemi around
mastering wine.
Oh yes, so you'll find
details on a little green slip
on your seats.
So you started your career
writing for the wine trade, so
magazines like Wine and Spirit.
And you've written many
books that are like a Bible
or encyclopedias
of the wine world,
such as "Oxford Companion
to Wine or Wine Grapes."
Can you tell us
about the journey
from that to this,
which is quite
a beginner's guide to wine?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Sure.
Well, "The 24-Hour Wine
Expert" came about really
via our 24-year-old
daughter, Rose.
She was between jobs, and she
was fed up with all her friends
who had masses of
questions about wine
and kept saying to her,
your mother's a wine writer.
You must know the answer.
And so she decided that
she would write a guide
to wine for her age group.
And she went about it in
a very sensible way, which
was to have a kind of focus
group for all her friends,
well lubricated by my
wine tasting leftovers,
and said to them, what would
you want in a guide to wine,
and made a record of all
the questions they had
and the topics that they
wanted to have covered.
And then she was offered
a nice job on Vogue,
so she didn't-- she's
now at Refinery 29.
And so she abandoned the idea.
But I'm from the north of
England, so I don't like waste.
[LAUGHTER]
I decided-- oh, no.
So that was one
reason that I did it.
The other reason--
you're filming this,
aren't you, so I've got
to be a bit tactful.
[LAUGHTER]
The other reason is that
a contemporary Dutch wine
writer that I know had
written a book in Holland that
was a big success there called
"Wine Expert in a Weekend."
And he was very keen
that there would
be an English version of it and
that we would do this together.
And I was far too busy
doing "The Oxford Companion
to Wine"-- the fourth
edition came out last year--
to sort of really
take it on board.
And he kept nagging
me, nagging me.
Finally, I read his book, or
an English translation of it,
and I didn't think
it was quite right.
It was sort of aimed at quite a
middle aged to elderly couple,
and he told them
go into the store
and buy that and then do that.
But by this stage, he was
really in the heavy nagging,
so I sort of had
to do something.
And so I decided that I
would do it completely
from scratch, my way.
But I have to
acknowledge that he was
the one who nagged me into it.
So it's a kind of
two-pronged attack.
SPEAKER 1: Big
thanks to him, then.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Yes, [INAUDIBLE].
SPEAKER 1: And what sort of an
audience did you have in mind?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Very, very--
sometimes some of my wine geeky
friends say, how did
you manage to get
the whole of the million-word
"Oxford Companion to Wine"
into that little book?
It's not the idea at all.
It's got nothing to do with
my great big reference books.
It's for people who really
like to drink wine, and want
a shortcut to the essentials
of wine, not wine geeks.
If people want to get
further into it, that's fine.
There's no shortage of
other sources of material.
But this is just the essentials,
and the most common things,
the practical things
that people want to know.
So it does lean
heavily on Rose's list.
And I've never produced a book
that's as cheap as that-- 4.99.
It's ridiculous.
[LAUGHTER]
It is coming out in
America in September.
And the American publishers
are putting a hardback
on it, which seems
a bit weird to me.
SPEAKER 1: It's so thin.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah.
It really does fit into a pocket
or a bag or whatever, yeah.
SPEAKER 1: Well, I've
done the course online.
JANCIS ROBINSON: The online one.
SPEAKER 1: The online course.
And I really loved that it
was just a practical guide.
And I will say that it was also
a great way for me to clarify
all the silly questions
that I had in my head
and I'm not quite brave
enough to ask other people.
But you certainly
answered them for me.
So I thought maybe we could go
into like a myth-busting game
for wine.
So these are the things that
you taught me on the course.
So let's start with number
one, which is tasting wine.
So you go into a restaurant,
and you get a little sample
to taste.
The purpose of that is so
I can see if I actually
like the wine or not.
JANCIS ROBINSON: That is
definitely not the reason.
You are not allowed to send
a wine back just because you
don't like it.
The purpose of that
giving you a taste
is twofold, for you
to check two things.
Well, first of all, they
show you the bottle.
If it's a decent
place, they should.
And they should show it to you
with the label fully exposed
so you can check the name
of the wine and the vintage,
and that they're
always the same.
It's amazing how often they
give you another vintage.
SPEAKER 1: Really?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Because it's
the next one on or something.
It's not always worse, but
it's amazing how inaccurate
some wine lists are.
So you're checking that
it's what you ordered.
You're checking-- they should
open it in front of you,
because there have been
instances of people ordering
very expensive bottles
and then the bottle
is brought to you
already opened.
And in an old-fashioned
unscrupulous place,
sometimes they would put an
inferior wine in that bottle.
Then you take a smell
of it, and you're just
checking that it's
not at all moldy,
that it's fresh and fruity,
because if it's stoppered
with a natural cork, sometimes,
in about 3% of cases,
sometimes, it will
have a cork taint.
It will have been
tainted by a moldy cork.
If it's a really
bad case, it will
smell unappetizing and
moldy, and you just
won't want to drink it.
Trouble is that cork
taint comes in degrees,
and you can get a mild
cork-tainted wine,
which possibly only the wine
maker would know was tainted.
You will have a mouthful of it
and say, it's not very fruity,
it's not great, but it
hasn't got an obvious fault.
So you have to be a real
confident professional
to send back a bottle that's
got a mild cork taint,
and you've really got to know
how the wine should taste.
But basically it's to check that
it hasn't got a really bad cork
taint.
And then it's also to check,
which you can do either
by having a mouthful-- and cork
taint should be perceptible
just on the nose, as we say.
But if you have a mouthful,
or feel the glass,
you can check whether the
wine's at the right temperature,
because wine is amazingly
sensitive to temperature.
We can come onto
that a bit later.
And very, very often
in a restaurant
they serve red wines too
warm, because they've
read that red wine should
be warmer than white.
And if a wine gets too
warm, even a red wine,
it loses its refreshment factor.
It's sort of heavy and soupy.
And very, very often we ask
for an ice bucket, actually,
for a red wine,
especially if it's
in a place where
they've been keeping
the red wine above
the bar or next
to the kitchen or something.
Or if it's a white
wine, they often
chill it very, very
fiercely, because they've
read that white wine
should be chilled.
And if something is too
cold, whatever it is,
you can't actually
smell anything.
So if they're serving you a
white wine and it's too cold,
then just say, please don't
put it in an ice bucket.
Leave it on the table,
that kind of thing.
So that's what you're checking.
But you're not allowed just to
say, nah, I don't like this,
because they've opened it.
And I'm saying this because
my husband was a restaurateur.
Our son is now a restaurateur.
So I have a slight--
they'll be out of pocket
if you just send it back.
SPEAKER 1: OK, another one.
I'm looking at a wine list
and I've been told in the past
that you don't want to
choose the cheapest one.
You don't want to choose
the most expensive one.
Choose the second least
expensive bottle of wine.
JANCIS ROBINSON: That's
sort of an urban myth,
or it's a very common
myth that the cleverest
choice is the second
one, the second cheapest.
And all restaurateurs know
that, so they put the wine
with the highest profit
margin second on the list.
So it's not clever
to choose the second.
What is clever--
SPEAKER 1: Yes.
JANCIS ROBINSON: And
especially nowadays,
when we have so many
waiting staff who
are enthusiastic
about wine, and quite
a lot of heavily
trained wine enthusiasts
as wine waiters or
just restaurant staff,
ask their advice.
I do.
I'm probably the
person in London
who asks more advice from
sommeliers than anybody.
There's almost an inverse
rule that almost the more you
know about wine,
the less embarrassed
you are about asking about
it, and the less you know,
you think, ooh, I don't want
to show off my ignorance,
so, oh, I see that
name on there.
I've heard of Chablis.
I'll go for that, whereas
the wine professionals will
look down a wine
list and go, I know
that, I know that-- oh, I've
never heard of this Ecuadorian
lesser-spotted thing.
I'll ask for that.
But then you would say to the
waiter, have you tasted this?
What's it like?
Or you spot something else,
is that too old, or is it--
so they want to share
their knowledge.
In the old days, wine
used to be served
by underpaid elderly
waitstaff, often not speaking
very good English, whose
kind of defense mechanism
was to be snooty, and didn't
really know very much.
It was a waste of time
asking them for advice.
But now the wait
staff are much more
likely to be young,
enthusiastic,
and knowledgeable, and would
love to discuss your wine
choices with them.
SPEAKER 1: I've
personally graduated
from saying, can you
recommend a red, to saying,
I really like pinots--
JANCIS ROBINSON: That's
the best thing, yeah.
The first question of a good
som will be, what do you like?
What do you normally
like drinking?
And don't be ashamed
of saying, I don't
want to spend more than x.
That just helps them.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
One last one, which is all
wine gets better with age.
JANCIS ROBINSON: That's
definitely wrong.
By volume, probably about 95%
of the wine sold in this country
does not get better with age.
I'm talking volume here, not
by the number of listings
or anything like that.
But the big sellers
are mass-market bottles
that are put on the
supermarket shelf
straight from the bottling line.
Their stock in trade
is youthful fruitiness.
And they're not made to last.
So drink them, whatever
color, even reds-- no point
in cellaring most of them.
One great variety that can
age reasonably well-- two
that I think of--
Riesling among whites.
No hurry to drink
that, generally.
And Cabernet
Sauvignon among reds.
That will last reasonably well.
But the commercial
stuff, don't age it.
But most of the wines that
I write about are designed
to age, do improve with age.
But they're-- I have to
admit that by volume,
they're the top 5% of interest
to me, and I hope my readers.
But Blossom Hill is not very
interesting to write about.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: You taste how many--
JANCIS ROBINSON: I think it's
about 10,000 wines a year.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
OK, so you're definitely
the right person
to answer this question.
What regions do you think
are underrated today in terms
of quality and/or value?
Maybe you can tell us
about a white and a red.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, to get value,
go for unfashionable wines.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
JANCIS ROBINSON: And
it's just starting
to catch up, but only
just, so it's still
a great value-- Muscadet had
a period out in the wilderness
where it was thought of
as having no character.
And it's having a wonderful
renaissance at the moment,
and it's had a couple
of nice vintages.
'12 was a great vintage,
'14, '15 good vintages.
And it lasts.
It ages.
It's made from a grape which
is a cousin of chardonnay,
and it's serious wine.
It's just that it hasn't
got a serious reputation.
So Muscadet is one.
In fact, so low are the prices
that Muscadet farmers are going
out of business all the time.
So they need you.
Please support them.
And the wines are not expensive.
Beaujolais is the sort of red
wine equivalent of Muscadet.
After the success of
Beaujolais nouveau,
we all fell out of
love with Beaujolais.
But nowadays they're
not making it
as a nouveau sort of
accelerated style.
They're making it as proper
red wine, still not expensive.
So those are obvious
French bargains.
What people don't
generally realize
is that Bordeaux makes most of
the most expensive red wines
in the world, but makes
so much wine that there
is brilliant value at the
bottom, at what they call
petite chateaus, sort
of little properties
that aren't famous ones.
I mean, I have a wine of
the week on the website
every Friday, and I
had one the other day,
it was from the
Wine Society, which
is a great place to buy wine,
because it's a co-operative.
They're not in the
market to make money.
And they had a 2009
Medoc for under 10 pounds
a bottle that was just
gorgeous, because 2009
was a very ripe vintage, so
it's drinking beautifully now.
So that's France.
South African wine
generally is underpriced,
and I think that although
South Africans think
they're better at
making reds than whites,
I think they're better at
making whites than reds.
And because they get that cold
current up from the South Pole,
they're good at keeping
natural freshness in the wine.
So I think South African
whites are very good.
And actually Chile
is very good value.
There's a lot of rather
boring, particularly red,
wine from Chile.
But it's very dependable.
If you're in, I don't know,
a Travelodge somewhere you
don't want to be, with a
not very good wine list,
then Chile would be probably
the most reliable choice.
SPEAKER 1: Thank you.
So recently Decanter,
the magazine,
published some
articles, or there
was a lot of press about a
blind taste test of, I think,
16,000 bottles, and the winner
was Asda, the supermarket wine.
And it was a Malbec retailing
at 4 pounds, 37 pence.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, the winner
was Asda's PR department--
[LAUGHTER]
JANCIS ROBINSON: --rather
than the wine, really.
They put the most amazing
spin on-- this wine,
I think it normally
retails at 6.99,
and when they did
the publicity they
put it on special promotion.
And it did-- I'm not involved
with the Decanter World Wine
Awards.
Magazines nowadays are finding
it very, very difficult
to make money because
subscriptions and ad
revenues are down.
Don't need to tell you this.
But one good money spinner
is to organize competitions,
because they charge
quite a lot to enter.
And so every year they organize
the Decanter World Wine Awards,
and yes, there were
a lot of entries.
But this Asda wine didn't
come top of the whole thing.
It won one section.
I haven't tasted it.
But the corollary of that is
something which I actually say
very explicitly in the book.
There is no direct relationship
between price and quality
with wine.
There are lots of overpriced
wines, a few underpriced ones
that we've just mentioned,
and-- well, again, I
don't have to tell you,
every marketing department
needs its segmentation
and its icon wine,
and then its premium wine.
And they put the prices
up, not always, in my view,
because the wine is
better at the top.
It's more, they've
spent more on it.
They put it into
more new oak, say,
which increases the
production costs.
But I very often, when
tasting a range of wines,
find myself preferring not-- my
favorite wine isn't necessarily
the most expensive.
Often it's been
the most tarted up,
but not necessarily
the nicest to drink.
SPEAKER 1: When we're
out in the supermarket
or our favorite
independent wine merchant,
there must be some kind of a
minimum price level, though.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah.
SPEAKER 1: Can you
make-- for example,
what's your opinion on
supermarket wines in general?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, in the '70s,
in the '80s in particular,
British supermarkets
were highly competitive
wine departments.
And they saw wine as a
major way to bring footfall,
encourage footfall, and
they put a lot of effort
into optimizing the quality
of what was in the bottle.
But in recent years--
not least because
we went through a period when
every year the duty went up,
but it was on a kind of rolling
thing, a sort of multiplier.
So George Osborne could
get up, announce the budget
and say, as for wine
duty, no change.
No change meant the
same old multiplier,
the same old
percentage increase.
So the public didn't understand
that duty was going up.
And so the supermarkets just
had to absorb the extra costs,
which meant that--
one of the reasons,
although there are several
others, that the quality went
down and down.
Also, they don't have
as much pride now.
The wine buying teams in general
are sort of very much inferior
to the accountants.
So I'm not nearly as excited
by the supermarket ranges
as at one stage I was.
And I'm a big champion
of the mushrooming number
of independent wine retailers.
Of course, they
can't buy in bulk.
They can't give you a $4.99
bottle that you could even
think of enjoying.
Probably the minimum
for something I think
would be probably 7 pounds.
Start at 7 pounds, or 6.99.
And that sweet spot for when
you're not paying over the odds
and you're sort of, with any
luck, getting what you pay for
is sort of between 7 and 17
pounds, something like that.
And you're really
getting what you pay for.
SPEAKER 1: Still quite
reasonable, I guess.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 1: Seven pounds isn't--
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah.
And a good independent wine
store should be-- really,
there's so much
inexpensive wine around,
they should be choosing what
they're offering at the lowest
end carefully.
SPEAKER 1: So as I've
learned to taste properly,
one of my challenges is-- so
there's sight, smell, taste.
The last two steps, and in
particular flavor descriptors,
is something that I
find quite amusing,
because I read
descriptions and I'm just
unable to quite get there.
And then you read descriptions
that are frankly ridiculous,
like in that documentary som,
they talk about, what is it,
a freshly cut garden hose.
I don't know, I've never smelled
something like that before.
JANCIS ROBINSON: No, I--
SPEAKER 1: How do you train?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
How do you train?
Well, do you want to?
Do you need to?
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: I guess so.
JANCIS ROBINSON: All right.
Well, it does help--
to remember flavors,
it helps to attach
words to them.
SPEAKER 1: Yes.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
But I would say just
follow what it reminds you of.
I mean, I don't think
it's any-- there's
no point in me saying--
I mean, I could
say this reminds me of x and y.
But I wouldn't,
because we've all
got different tasting
equipment hidden
inside and different preferences
and different intolerances
and things that we can't
sense and things we're
particularly sensitive to.
You're going to experience
something different.
So I would just
try to concentrate.
I mean, I've given in here
sort of my common descriptors
of various grapes are
as what might be a help.
But if there's something
that strikes you,
then try and remember it,
and look for it again.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
JANCIS ROBINSON: But
I'm lightly skeptical
about these tasting notes where
people-- and they exist-- where
people list 20 different
unrelated flavors
or aromas in a wine.
Sometimes it just seems
as though-- I have never
tasted 20 different
things in a wine,
and I've tasted some
fantastic wines.
I believe that
physiologists say it's
pretty impossible to
sense more than three
or four things in one substance.
SPEAKER 1: So I have hope.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Yes, definitely.
SPEAKER 1: Top three
tips-- so from this book,
there are many tips.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Well, I think
the first thing is to follow
your own likes and dislikes.
There is no such thing
as rights and wrongs
in wine appreciation.
It is just important to
discover what you like
and to follow that.
It is not wrong to
hate all red wines.
Most inconveniently, both of our
daughters only like white wine,
which is a pain
because 80% of the wine
that I taste, and I am sent a
heck of a lot of free samples,
is red.
And I'd love to give it to them.
And some people
have intolerances
to red wine or white
wine, that sort of thing.
The second thing
is if you do want
to maximize your enjoyment of
wine, and learn a bit more,
I know I should say buy
my book, buy my course,
look at my website.
In fact, there's a lot that's
free on JancisRobinson.com.
About a third of it is
free, including a lot
of sort of basics of wine.
But I think the most useful
thing to do practically
is to identify a local
independent wine merchant
and try to establish a
relationship with them,
a bit like you would
with a bookseller.
I think there are strong
parallels between wine shops
and booksellers.
And you know how you'd
go into a bookseller
and say, I really enjoyed this
book, what would you recommend?
So go, say I really
like pinot noir,
not so sure about
California ones,
but what would you recommend?
And allow them to lead you on.
It's in their interests
to give you good advice.
If they don't, then
try another store.
But in London, we're
spoiled for choice.
And that, I think is-- and
they love talking about it,
just the same way as
the wine waiters do.
So capitalize on that.
So that's two, isn't it.
Tips-- I think also,
don't underestimate
the importance of temperature.
A lot of reds taste nicer
if they're reasonably cool.
SPEAKER 1: What's the
right temperature?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, not a hot room.
Cool, straight from a
cellar sort of thing.
SPEAKER 1: 17, 18?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
But you're not going
to go around sticking a
thermometer in, are you?
Yeah, about 17.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: I might, though.
[LAUGHTER]
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah, about 17.
But sometimes down at 15.
And it's only really
champagne and things
that you want to be
really cool, down to 10,
11, that kind of thing.
And the fuller-bodied
the white, the warmer you
can serve it to encourage
the smells and the flavor.
SPEAKER 1: Thank you.
Old World versus New World, so
that sort of elitist attitude
that exists, particularly
maybe in Bordeaux or Burgundy.
It feels that the playing
field is a lot more level now
than it was years ago.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, as I was saying,
my FT article tomorrow
is about this year
is the 40th anniversary
of the tasting that turned
the world of wine upside down.
It was in Paris and it was
called the Judgment of Paris.
And a friend of mine,
Steven Spurrier,
got a whole load of France's
top tasters together.
He wanted to show
them these wines
that he'd found in California
that were really good.
But at the last minute,
he realized none of them
had tasted California
wine before,
and they might be
prejudiced if they knew.
So he decided that he would
organize a blind tasting,
mixing them up with some of
France's most revered wines.
And guess what?
They all preferred
the California ones.
This was in 1976.
They were absolutely--
they didn't believe it.
They thought it
was a fluke result.
They said, oh, it's because
French wines need longer
to mature.
And so he organized it
again 10 years later,
and Californians won again.
So that showed, slowly,
because the Old World
was slow to accept it,
that New World wine
could be really very good.
And all sorts of
other developments--
the Australians had masses
of very highly trained wine
makers, and they swept through
Europe, particularly the sort
of underresourced
co-operative sellers,
teaching the gospel
of winery hygiene
and how to keep
the fruit in wine.
So they upped the quality
of inexpensive Europe,
Old World wine
quite substantially.
And Old World producers,
their children,
the people who
are now in charge,
would routinely have a stint
in a New World, at least
one, if not several,
New World regions.
But at the same time,
New World wine producers
got rather taken by
this notion of terroir
and started to get
fascinated about how
little local features actually
influence what's in the bottle.
So the result of
all that has been
a massive drawing
together, really,
of Old World producers being
much more technically qualified
and having friends
throughout the New World,
and accepting that the
New World makes good wine,
and New Worlders actually
wanting their wines
to be more than just
technically perfect,
but to absorb some of the
best of the Old World.
And they're rather envious
of all the tradition.
So it's not really
a battle anymore,
taking the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER 1: So In the future,
let's say 20 years out,
no real difference?
It's very much about
region and producers, even?
JANCIS ROBINSON: It's
all about specifics
and local, yes, nowadays, yeah.
SPEAKER 1: So one
of the things that
has helped me learn about wine
is the associations that you
make in the book.
So if I like white burgundies--
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yes, then--
SPEAKER 1: Then what would I--
so maybe you can suggest a few.
So let's say I like
white burgundies,
but they're really expensive.
What are my alternative choices?
JANCIS ROBINSON: OK,
well, the obvious thing
is to go for chardonnay,
which is the same grape,
and places that are
making wines really
quite like white burgundy.
Australia, which used to
make these great big fat sort
of Bridget Jones type wines--
[LAUGHTER]
--has done a complete
volte face and is now
making very good copies of white
burgundy, in fact sometimes
almost too austere.
So that would be
an obvious place.
Also, South Africa's making
very good chardonnay,
as I said, well priced.
And even Chile's got
some good chardonnay.
And there's been a sea
change in California
whereby they're
making more and more--
they've still got some quite big
fat Chardonnays in California,
but some more
Burgundian ones as well.
But they're quite expensive.
California wine's
quite expensive.
SPEAKER 1: So let's
shift gears a bit.
Googlers are a techie
bunch, and there's
been an explosion of
wine apps and websites.
Do you think there's a place for
technology in the wine world?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Oh, yeah.
Well, you just got
to look around.
Everyone's using their
label-scanning apps.
And it's had a huge
effect on us wine writers.
You know, there
was a time not that
long ago when there were
really just a handful of wine
authorities around the world,
and they'd sit on a pedestal
and hand down their
judgments on tablets of stone
and with scores, and everybody
would follow them slavishly.
Not anymore, which
actually is very healthy.
I used to say what I wanted to
do in my working life was not
tell people what to like, but
give people enough information
that they had the confidence
to make up their own minds.
And that is happening
at a massive rate.
And now that you
can share pictures
of what you're
drinking and people
are getting recommendations
from a much, much wider range
of recommenders, whether it's
friends, soms, the odd wine
writer.
It's all much more democratic.
I wrote-- the review section,
it's called Life and Arts,
of the Financial
Times on a Saturday,
I think it was only last
September when the "New Oxford
Companion" came out.
I wrote a piece
called something like,
What Future for Expertise?
It's on my website, as well.
And it was a very,
very popular article,
because I think it was maybe
one of the few from somebody
who'd sort of made a reputation
in a field addressing
what it's like to exist
in a new landscape.
It was interesting.
SPEAKER 1: Do you
have any favorites?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Favorite--
SPEAKER 1: Whether it
be websites or apps?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Of course
I've got a favorite website.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: Apart from yours.
JANCIS ROBINSON: I don't
use label-scanning apps,
because it's my life.
I kind of-- I think one of
my favorites, the site I
use the most, maybe
semiprofessionally,
but it's hugely useful
for any consumer,
is WineSearcher.com, which
is the price comparison.
There's only one good wine
price comparison site,
WineSearcher.com.
And funnily enough, it's based
in New Zealand, actually.
It was set up by a guy
who built Berry Brothers'
website for them, and then went
back to his native New Zealand.
And it is-- honestly, it
can save you a fortune.
And it's also very
interesting, because you
see the variation in prices in
different markets and things
like that.
And the retailers have
to join, so it doesn't
list every single retailer.
But lists a heck of a
lot of them-- very good.
And it gives you the average
price throughout the world,
and you can search by market,
by country, and in the US
you can search by state.
And it's very good.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
So continuing with
the futuristic theme,
let's talk trends.
So these days, you hear a
lot about organic, natural,
biodynamic wines.
Can you demystify what
it all means, please?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Well,
organic, you know,
is quite straightforward,
minimizing agrochemicals.
And I don't think I could
tell blind an organic wine
versus a conventionally
made wine.
Biodynamic is--
sounds very weird.
The operations
are done according
to the phases of
the moon, and it
involves sort of
tizan and little sort
of homeopathic
doses of chamomile
buried in a corner of a
vineyard in a cow horn.
[LAUGHTER]
Honestly, and it sounds
completely crazy,
and no one has
managed to advance
any scientific
explanation or reason.
However, an awful lot of
very, very good wine producers
have adopted
biodynamic viticulture,
because it does seem to
result in vines and soil that
look so much healthier
and produce wines
that very often, in a
blind tasting I will think,
I think that's biodynamic.
They have a sort of
extra vitality to them.
I know this sounds
a bit weird, but it
could be that to obey
biodynamic strictures,
you have to pay such
a lot of attention
to each individual vine that
that is the consequence.
And it may not matter
that you are not following
the phase of the moon.
That said, Burgundy is probably
the most traditional wine
region, and even everyone
in the younger generation
knows that when the moon
is in a certain position,
the lees will be all
stirred up in the barrel,
so don't do your bottling then.
And you wait until the
moon is in the right phase
to do your bottling.
And that's just something
they've observed.
SPEAKER 1: And natural?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Natural, [INAUDIBLE].
Natural is very
trendy, as you know.
Natural means you haven't
really added anything,
and you glory in not adding
anything, which is great.
The only trouble in my book
is that it doesn't always
result in a good wine.
For me personally,
it's not enough
that the wine is natural.
First of all, it's
got to be good.
If it can be good and
natural, that's fine.
But there are still,
although the overall quality
of natural wine has been
increasing, there are still,
to me, a lot of
faulty natural wines
that taste like cider gone off.
Or there's a particular
compound which apparently
only about a third of the
population is sensitive to,
and I can only assume that
the naturalistas are not
sensitive to it.
It's sort of how you would
imagine an old rodent
cage smelling.
[LAUGHTER]
And some of the
wines are like that,
so you've got to be a
bit careful, I think.
But that said, there is a great
movement throughout the world
now for a new generation
wanting to make
not just copies of the old
classics, but new sorts
of wine.
And a lot of those are natural.
So I think it's great
that they exist.
I think on a list, it helps
have them separated out
so you know what you're getting.
So for instance,
our son puts them
on the list under
off-piste wines,
so you know that
they're different.
Although funnily enough, I was
just this morning before coming
here I was reading through a
transcript of an interview that
a Polish wine writer
had done with me,
and he had written out, because
he'd had the same question,
so I explained about
off-piste wines,
and he'd written off-piste as
O-double-F, hyphen P-I-S-S-E-D.
[LAUGHTER]
SPEAKER 1: I could ask
you many questions,
but maybe Googlers
in the room would
like to ask some questions.
So please don't be shy.
Questions?
Whoa.
You.
JANCIS ROBINSON: I don't
think you need a mic.
Yeah,
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I don't know
if I need a mic, either, but--
SPEAKER 1: Perhaps
for filming purposes.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Oh, yes, sorry.
Sorry.
AUDIENCE: So I feel like I've
done many kind of wine 101s,
but I find the next
step quite scary.
So do you pick a country, do
you learn about a country,
do you learn about
a specific region?
What about vintages?
So what do you recommend
for sort of 201
in terms of learning wine?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Do
you know the WSET?
Wine and Spirit
Education Trust is
the-- I did all their
courses when I first started,
and it's the things that lead
up to the master of wine.
They're based in London,
although they're global now.
They're world's biggest
wine educating body,
and they have a series
of scaled courses.
And a lot of them are evening.
So I would look into those.
On our website, under
the learn section,
we have something
called courses,
and we've got a long
list of wine educators
all around the world,
quite a lot in London.
I think what I
like about WSET is
it's very-- they force
you to learn everything.
You can't just follow what
happens to take your fancy.
There's another good guy
called Michael Schuster
who gives regular wine courses
in Islington, actually.
But have a look at a list there.
Christy's do wine
courses, but they
tend to be a little bit just
very, very fine wines, really.
And they tend to assume a
bit of knowledge, I think.
AUDIENCE: How did you get
into the wine writing?
How did you transition
from Oxford mathematics
and philosophy into doing this?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Well, when I graduated
it was way back in '71, when
the subjects of wine and food
were thought of as being
terminally frivolous.
So although I knew that I
was most interested in wine
and food even then,
I didn't dare say
to my friends I was going
into either of those,
because they'd have said, what
a waste of an Oxford education.
So I spent three years
in the travel business,
because I like travel.
Then I dropped out to
France for a year, Provence,
surrounded by vineyards.
And by that stage,
of course, I was
surrounded by people for
whom eating and drinking
is what life's all
about, in France.
And so I was determined that
when I got back to London,
I would find a job in
either wine or food.
And as a little tangent, my
husband, the restaurateur--
I used to be a cook quite
a bit, but by the time
we had two children, in '84, my
husband, who at first couldn't
cook at all, but
having a restaurant
got fascinated by it, sort
of said, stand aside, madam.
I will now do all the cooking,
and has done all the cooking
in our household ever since.
In one of our son's restaurants
last week, he basically
sent around an email
to the family saying,
hey, you'll never guess what.
This guy came in and said
that he interviewed mom
to be a cook in his wine bar.
And Rose then responded
by that saying,
was it a tarte
tatin-focused wine bar,
because that's the
one dish that I cook.
[LAUGHTER]
But I was, at that
stage, looking
at food as well as wine.
But I found this job
as assistant editor
of a wine trade magazine at
a dramatic reduction in pay.
But I learned on the job.
I immediately signed
up for the WSET courses
so that I did actually have
some-- when I was interviewed,
the publisher said we're having
quite a lot of applications
for this job.
We've having quite
a bit of difficulty
choosing the right
person, because either we
choose a wine expert and have
to teach them how to write,
or we choose a
journalist and have
to teach them all about wine.
He looked down at my
application and said,
you, of course, are
neither of these things.
[LAUGHTER]
Nevertheless, you're the
favorite for the job.
And afterwards,
when I quizzed him,
he said it was because I'd
shown that I could organize
the skiing side of
Thomson Holidays,
and that I would organize--
what I didn't know,
I would organize myself.
And I had done quite--
I'd been the restaurant
correspondent of ISIS
when I was at university
and things like that.
And I'd written for
the Good Food Guide,
so I think I wasn't
a total illiterate.
And then it just went
nicely from there.
It was great timing, because
I started in the end of '75,
just as the British were kind
of getting into wine and travel.
AUDIENCE: What impact
do you think Brexit
will have on our beloved wine?
Sorry.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Sorry.
No, I'm not a groaning at you.
Well, prices will go up.
All wine prices will go up.
A few of the more
savvy wine importers
bought currency
forward, but they're
going to go up eventually.
One short-term effect
was that London
is a center for fine wine
trading throughout the world.
We are an absolute--
Asia is catching up,
and as soon as we voted,
the fine wine traders here
were-- they're cleared out.
Well, as the pound plummeted,
rather, cleared out of stock.
The fine wine traders are
now desperate for stock,
busy calling around all
their customers saying, now
is the time to sell.
We'll buy your wine
collection from you,
because they don't want
to have to go into Europe.
And a lot of French
Bordeaux [INAUDIBLE]
were plundering the collections
of British fine wine traders.
Not good.
Oh, I did think of one
good thing, though.
The EU has a fund to promote
EU wine in non-EU countries.
So--
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: I'm a big
fan of your writing,
and I actually did a few courses
with Richard Hemming, who--
JANCIS ROBINSON: Oh, right.
Oh, good.
AUDIENCE: --so a big fan,
I'm really [INAUDIBLE].
And I recommend him, actually.
If you can get him to do
courses, he's excellent.
JANCIS ROBINSON: I
don't even where-- where
does he give his courses?
He works for me,
but I don't know.
AUDIENCE: It was something
organized through,
I think it was the London
Wine Association or something.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: LWA or something.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Academy.
JANCIS ROBINSON: It
will be on that list,
anyway, and on the website.
And he's very nice, very easy.
AUDIENCE: SPEAKER Super nice.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: I'm a big--
I buy most of my wine
through wine [INAUDIBLE].
I really like it.
Is it like-- people
stock-- I don't
have any space for a
cellar, but I suppose
I could buy a bit more wine.
What do you think about--
JANCIS ROBINSON: Well, the
value place to store wine
is at the Wine Society.
AUDIENCE: So what I
was going to ask is,
what is the value of doing
that, of building up, let's say,
a stock of a few
hundred bottles?
Nothing crazy, but
does it make sense?
I mean, are you saving money, or
are you just kind of just tying
up money in stuff that you've
going to save on later?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Usually
you're saving money.
I mean, the vintages, the
'09 and '10 and Bordeaux were
exceptions, which the Bordelaise
were desperate to get as much
money out of the Chinese as
possible and they overpriced
the wine.
Britain is not a very good
place to buy mature wine
by the single bottle in.
You can generally by it
by the dozen bottles.
So if you want to get your hands
on wine that's-- drink wine
when it's fully mature, then it
probably is a good idea to lay
it down, as they say.
AUDIENCE: Always cheaper
than buying a sportscar.
JANCIS ROBINSON:
It's a lot cheaper
than buying a
sportscar, much cheaper.
And it's sociable.
You can share it with your
friends more-- more friends
than a sportscar.
AUDIENCE: Do you
think climate change
is going to have an
impact on which regions
are interesting to--
JANCIS ROBINSON: It's already
having quite a massive impact.
And in fact, one of the
approx 3,000 free articles
on my website I
published quite recently
was specifically which regions
have been most affected,
and what have been the
most obvious effects
in the world of wine.
One of the more obvious ones
is the poleward expansion
of the wine regions
of the world.
There's not too much
further the south
the Southern Hemisphere
wine regions can go
before topping into the ocean.
But countries that now have
thriving wine industries
include Denmark, Sweden,
Holland, Belgium,
England, and there's
even a vineyard in Norway
now, which has yet to
ripen a crop successfully,
but it has been planted.
So that's very obvious.
Alcohol level's
going up, generally,
because of more, hotter summers.
And say somewhere like--
and then places running out
of water, terrible
water shortages
at times in California, and
particularly the inland areas
of Australia.
Quite a lot of grape
farmers have given up
in those inland, irrigated areas
because it's just too expensive
to buy the water rights.
And there's also been a
problem with salinity,
so to get good quality water
is too much of a challenge.
And so in general, in
established wine regions,
there's a move for people
to find cooler areas.
You see that in
Burgundy, for instance.
AUDIENCE: So in
Oxford, they're kind
of notorious that the
colleges have wine cellars.
Have you ever been around them,
and which one has the best wine
collection?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yes.
The best one is
All Soul's, which
has no undergraduates at all.
And I have been around that
one, and it is amazing.
I haven't been--
actually, I went round
to write an article for Wine and
Spirits, which I left in 1980.
So I'm not at all up to speed.
But we made a television
program about the cellars
at Lincoln, actually,
and it, like lots
of the Oxbridge
sellers, has sold off
a lot of vintage ports.
They used to serve a
lot of vintage port,
but don't anymore.
But as I understand it, the job
of wine steward at the Oxbridge
colleges is highly
sought after, and there's
massive backstabbing to get it.
There are lots and lots
of tastings in Oxbridge.
The merchants, that's
one of the places
where you can sell fine wine.
So it is a good-- Oxbridge is
a good place to taste wine,
and certainly that was where
I was introduced to fine wine
and had my seminal bottle of red
Burgundy, which made me realize
just how good wine could be.
AUDIENCE: Quick question.
From a marketing perspective,
are there any tricks
that you have that
you'd use to make a wine
seem like it tastes better?
And I guess there's a
certain amount of ceremony
that can influence how
people perceive taste.
And I don't know
whether that's something
that you address at
all, and the sort
of things that you do to
help anticipation of a taste
and anticipation is
something that actually
does improve the taste.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Well, most
of the time I'm judging wine,
and so I have no interest in
making-- I want it as it is.
I'm almost looking for faults.
I'm analyzing it.
There's a huge difference
between tasting and drinking,
and tasting is what
I do during the day
and I want to minimize
the effects of alcohol
and I spit everything out,
and I'm super critical.
But in the evening,
it's drink time,
and that's a completely
different activity.
And you're right, I want
to make the wine taste as
good as possible,
particularly when
I'm serving wine to friends.
One very useful
trick is that if you
have a young red
wine, which is still
high in tannins, these
sort of chewy things
that will preserve it
for quite a long time,
but in youth they can be
quite astringent and obvious,
the warmer you serve it the less
obvious the tannins will be.
So that would be, say, a young
red Bordeaux, a young Cabernet.
Serve it just a
little bit warmer
than you would serve an old
wine, and it will taste softer.
And if you actually have it with
a dish which is itself chewy,
like a steak or a roast
or something like that,
the wine will seem less chewy.
And so those would be
good tips for flattering
a young red wine.
Don't-- wine is pretty-- unless,
it's a really sweet wine,
wine is pretty
wrecked by sweet food.
I mean, I look at people--
just the other night
I was amazed to see people
ordering another glass of wine
as the pudding
arrived, and I thought,
that's not going to
taste of anything.
So just be careful about serving
wine with anything very sweet.
And I suppose things
that are very, very acid
sometimes are tricky
partners for wine.
And remember what I said about
temperature generally before.
That can help.
AUDIENCE: Just a question
around like, white wine and fish
and red wine and
meats, and do you
have a rule of when
do you actually
have white wine with meat, or--
JANCIS ROBINSON: No.
If it's a very, very simple
poached sole, very delicate,
say, then yes, to have a great
big, massive, chewy red wine
wouldn't be a great match.
But a pinot noir, sort of light,
fruity red, absolutely fine.
It's more about the color--
less about the color,
more about the dimensions of
a wine, really-- great big.
If you're having
a rich stew, then
have a kind of
big, powerful wine.
And a delicate food, then have
a delicate wine, sort of thing.
But the color doesn't matter.
In Bordeaux, they
make largely red wine,
and they're always serving
fish with the red wine.
But in general, a
fruity red is better
than a chewy red with fish.
So pinot noir would
be a good choice.
AUDIENCE: I have a less
technical question.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Does the queen
have a favorite wine?
JANCIS ROBINSON: No.
AUDIENCE: No.
How often do you get
asked this question?
All the time?
JANCIS ROBINSON:
Especially abroad.
No, I don't think
she's a big wine fan.
AUDIENCE: Oh.
JANCIS ROBINSON: But
she needs a lot of wine
for all those
receptions and things.
But because it all comes
out of the privy purse,
we can't afford-- we don't
go for very expensive things
for big receptions, because
we know the Daily Mail would
get hold of it.
[LAUGHTER]
But it is fun to walk
into Buckingham Palace.
I still get a sort
of childish thrill
showing my driver's license
to the policeman on the gates
and then crunching
over the gravel.
SPEAKER 1: One last
question for me.
So we touched on English wines.
And there's a thriving
sparkling wine industry.
Do you have any
favorite producers?
JANCIS ROBINSON: Yes, I do,
and quite a few, actually.
And again, I put them at
the end of an FT article,
so they're at the end of a free
article on JancisRobinson.com.
If you put English
wine in the search box,
choose not tasting notes,
but everything else.
I listed about 12.
But one very good one,
Hambledon is very good,
came top of a blind tasting
I did with Champagnes.
I mean, beating the Champagnes.
SPEAKER 1: Thank you so much.
JANCIS ROBINSON: Pleasure.
[APPLAUSE]
