What was it that intrigued you most about doing this programme?James: Oz Clarke - he’s mad! He can’t put anything in his mouth without half an hour of analysing its every detail. He can’t simply have a coffee or digestive biscuit without going on about the fat content or the roast of the coffee. Oz: Wine shows in the past have been far too precious and obsessed with details. I was really excited about this programme as the aim was to provide 30 minutes of entertaining, informative TV, which also happens to be about wine. What did you gain from the experience?Oz: I’ve been reminded that wine is an intellectual, emotional, guttural, unnecessary pleasure. Throughout the making of the programme, I was often there getting all involved in the highways and byways of criticising the wine, whereas James kept on reminding me that, as the saying goes, ‘wine is supposed to be for drinking’; an invaluable lesson. James: I find myself more irritated with the French than before, in the nicest possible way! The most interesting part of the trip was meeting the entertaining and eccentric French people, and learning about the historical and political aspects of wine. I’ve learned how to go to the supermarket or off-licence and make base-level informed decisions about wine buying - or I just call Oz and ask him which wine to buy… Oz, what was it like working with James?  James was just the right person to work with. He’s a complex fellow and a great wine taster, if only he’d stop playing the wine hooligan. But the best thing about James was that when we got into the real wine buffery, he would always stop us - although he could waffle on about cars for England. While I would be wittering on about the minutiae of wine production, he would be pouring another half pint of a precious wine. What was the most memorable part of the trip?James: In terms of the wine drunk, I would say drinking the Château Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse-de-Lalande in Bordeaux. Up until then, I’d liked wine when I had a nice one, but didn’t really know what I was doing. If you spend a huge amount of money, you can have a mind-bending drinking experience and start to crave it. It can ruin you as nothing ever matches up - just like trying to go back to a Golf GTI after driving a Porsche! Although having said that, I still firmly believe that wine is for drinking, but not talking about. Oz, the French wholeheartedly believe their wines are the best in the world. Do you think they’re justified in thinking that? Or is it just chauvinism personified? The French are massively boastful about the wine they produce, and they do make some of the best wine in the world… and some of the worst… and quite a lot in the middle. They are getting outdone by other parts of the world though. Young people in France are now drinking Australian and Chilean wine, and the French producers aren’t worried, saying they will ‘come back to’ Bordeaux. The thing is that young people were never there in the first place. The wine situation in France is bad and exports are dropping - there’s a touch or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic with those guys. James, out of all the regions you visited, which would you recommend most to a newcomer to French wines?To see how complicated and archaic the wine business has become, I’d go to Burgundy. To find something good to drink, I’d recommend heading to the Corbière mountains, where you’ve got beautiful driving and scenery, as well as great wine. Oz, what wines will you serve up for Christmas this year? It’s a generalisation, but I would recommend Chilean reds between £5 and £10 - these are more reliable than any other. For a drinkable white wine, New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs from the Marlborough region are trustworthy, as are their South African and Chilean equivalents. They’re tangy, scintillating on the palate and go fantastically well with turkey. With your Christmas pudding, try an ice-cold, sweet, fruity Asti Spumante. It’s low in alcohol, fizzy and refreshing. It’ll lighten your load after Christmas dinner and make you brighter, breezier and wittier again. James, you had to make use of the Oz-illator on more than one occasion [a kind of whistle he blew when Oz started descending into pretentious wine-speak]. Were you ever tempted into purple prose by any of the wines you tasted?I have my own version of wine talk. Oz always says, "there’s no language of wine, you have to borrow other language to talk about it". So I tried to out-do him, talking about the sun rising over a hay stack or whatever. But then you end up in this game of trying to outwit each other on ridiculous wine allegories. Are there plans for another series? If so, where would you like to go next?Oz: There's a whole range of places we could go to next - Spain or Portugal in Europe, or even Australia, or North or South America. James: I’d like to go somewhere in the New World, perhaps Australia or New Zealand where things are very different from France, where you have the grape variety on the label and people are very open about things, unlike France which is wantonly rustic and obscure. Chile might also be interesting - they have some great red wines. But that’s only if I could take Oz, otherwise the local pub will do fine. |
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