- Speaker #0
All the best non-fiction writing is also imaginative writing. It's not just fiction that is imaginative writing. It's the imagination that sets fire to things, that illuminates things from within.
- Speaker #1
Le vin, le jaja, le pinard, le pif. There is a term that describes this beverage we love to drink, the fermented grape juice. And it is because we love it more than anything else that we want to better understand what makes a good wine. Sages, climates and lands participate in it, but above all, there is the vigneronne and vigneronnes paste. I am Romain. I am Florian. I am Antoine. We are three friends and we take you to meet these men and women in their field to question them about the magic of their profession and their life in the middle of grapes, vines and barrels. Welcome everyone to the Bon Grain de l'Ivresse. Well, the interview you are about to listen to is extraordinary. First, this is a testimony of Andrew Jefford who has been writing about wine for nearly 35 years. He has seen many trends, debates, tasted many different wines, and takes with me a critical yet benevolent look at this wine world that he loves so much. Second, we recorded this interview end of August at the top of Pic Saint-Loup. Pic Saint-Loup is a famous mountain near Montpellier in the south of France, close to Andrew's village. It is also a great Languedoc appellation that produces silky red wines. The 1 hour 30 minute hike to reach the top was perfect to think about my conversation with Andrew and decide to go for a hike. where I wanted to go with him. But no one can ever control an interview, right? It was nearly 7pm, the sun was still shining and a little breeze was cooling down the atmosphere. After a nice glass of Pic Saint-Louis wine, Andrew and I had a long conversation. Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen. Hello Andrew Jefford.
- Speaker #0
Hello Romain. Good to be with you.
- Speaker #1
I'm really happy to be with you today, thanks for welcoming me. in Languedoc, where you have been living since 2010. We are in quite an astonishing place for recording, because we are at the top of the Pic Saint-Loup, a place that you like particularly. Can you start by introducing yourself, please?
- Speaker #0
Okay. Well, my name is Andrew Jefford. I write about wine and do some education and some... tourism work and some consultation and those sort of things as well. But above all, writing about wine. I've done that for 30 years now, 35 years soon, mainly for Decanter and World of Fine Wine, and also nowadays The New Statesman too. I've written books on wine, The New France, on whisky, Whisky Island, and recently a collection of writings called Drinking with the Valkyries.
- Speaker #1
I'm going to start by a very specific point, sorry, and then we will go widely. But first, why Languedoc and why Pic Saint-Loup particularly?
- Speaker #0
Well, my family and I came here in 2010. We'd been in Australia for a year, and that was great, but it was time to come back to Europe. And for various reasons, we didn't particularly want to go back to... the UK at that time. And we had a house in the UK which was rented out and all our things were in storage. We had two children who were about to start school. So it was quite easy to make the experiment of going to live somewhere else. And I'd always loved France. And so we thought we'd come and live in France. So then the question was, well, where should we go and live in France? And I guess because I make my living by writing about wine and communicating about wine. It had to be somewhere with quite a strong wine pool. And we thought quite seriously about Bordeaux. But I also had been to Montpellier quite a lot and been to Languedoc a lot. And I liked that a lot as well. When we were in Australia, we were in near Adelaide. So Mediterranean climate. We liked the Mediterranean climate. And so we thought we'd give Languedoc a try. We thought perhaps socially it might be a bit easier than Bordeaux. and we came here and we've been here ever since. And then, well, of course we had to decide where to live. We didn't actually want to live in the city, but a little bit outside the city. And in effect that meant either living on the coast or heading up to the hills towards the Cévennes, which we decided to do. And that meant that we lived within easy reach of Pic Saint-Loup, a beautiful mountain, dominates its landscape, lends its name to one of the most successful Languedoc appellations. And so we've been here ever since. And I always say to people, if you're passing or if you're... Coming by and you have time, let me know and we'll walk up Pic Saint-Louis and we'll have a picnic at the top. And that's what we're going to do today. We've come up to the top of Pic Saint-Louis. It's a beautiful sunny evening in late August. Light filling the sky above us. It was a warm walk, but now we're cooling down. There's nice breezes at the top and we're very happy to be here.
- Speaker #1
Very happy to be here with a glass of wine, of course. Pic Saint-Louis from Domaine de la Pégaline 2019. A very nice wine, yes?
- Speaker #0
Yep, absolutely. Pegalin, quite new growers within Pic Saint-Loup. There are many great producers in Pic Saint-Loup, but I'm particularly fond of the wines of Pegalin. And in fact we had the chance just to go and visit the domain before we came on our walk. I hadn't seen Philippe and Nathalie that run the domain for quite a while, several years actually. And so when I heard you were coming down it was a chance for us to go and say hello to them at the domain as well. So we've come via that domain, we've had a look at some of the terroir of Pic Saint-Loup, we've seen beautiful Syrah grapes just before harvest, and here we are drinking the wine from 2019, a few harvests ago.
- Speaker #1
Thanks for opening this bottle Andrew. What makes the the personality of the wines from Pic Saint-Loup and why do you like them?
- Speaker #0
Well Pic Saint-Loup is just about the furthest Appalachian east in Languedoc. Now that Costa de Nimes has attached itself to the Rhône, that used to be in Languedoc as well, of course. So Pic Saint-Louis is about the most easterly Appalachian in Languedoc. It's also one of the wettest still. We don't have too many drought problems here as yet. It's a beautiful limestone terroir, dominated by the... the peak of Pic Saint-Loup and by the cliff of Ortus, which we can just see in front of us. We're standing right up at the, or sitting right up at the top of the peak. We can look across the Combe de Fontbetout, this beautiful trench between the two, over to the Falaise d'Ortus, the cliff of Ortus. And those two landforms really dominate the Appalachian. And the vineyards are formed, ah, well, like skirts all around those particular two landforms, actually. pointing in different directions and giving you different nuances of exposition. And well, this one, I mean, there are lots and lots of interesting things to say about Pic Saint-Louis, but we don't want to talk the whole time about Pic Saint-Louis. But this particular wine comes off a soil type known locally as les gravettes, glacial gravels, which have come off in glacial times off the Cuesta edge and formed a nice Nice clay matrix with these beautiful pieces of limestone in them. And so that's an excellent, beautifully draining terroir for the grapes to grow in. A minstrel coming through. Yes. Bonjour. Bonjour.
- Speaker #1
So, Andrew, you were born a few decades ago.
- Speaker #0
Many decades ago now. I'm an antique. I was born actually in... Just about the worst year conceivable in the 20th century, 1956, the year of the terrible frosts.
- Speaker #1
But I'm here to have the words of a wise man, okay? So you were born in England, right? And you had some studies, nothing to do with wine, okay? So in your last book, Drinking with the Valkyries, you start the books by answering the question, why wine? And I'm asking you the same question. Why wine, finally?
- Speaker #0
Yes, why spend your whole life on wine? Because in some senses, it's not an obvious thing to do. You know, wine is an intoxicant. Many people believe it's not very good for the health. Others believe it is good for the health, of course. It's not something anybody needs. You don't need ever to drink wine. Like, you need to eat food. You don't need to drink wine. So it's a... in that sense, one of life's luxuries. So why spend your whole life on that? I think the answer for me is that it's one of the most inspiring things I know on this earth. It's very beautiful. and it has a wonderfully intellectual side and it also has a wonderfully sensual side. And that combination of the intellectual and the sensual I find very attractive. It's a product with an enormously deep culture. You know, the first great book of Western literature, Homer's Odyssey, is full of people drinking wine, of wine descriptions, even the sea is described as wine dark and a very famous Homeric simile. So, very, very richly invested culturally, and I love that too. But above all, above all, it's place. Wine draws you closer to beautiful places on earth. It helps you understand beautiful places on earth in a way that you can't understand those places in any other way. When you drink wine, you truly drink the personality of... places on earth. And for me, it bonds us to our earthly home really like nothing else does. It's unique in that respect. This manner it has of compelling, providing a compelling relationship with places on earth and helping us to understand our earth better. So those are really the things why I'm happy and honoured to have spent my life working. with wine and about wine and talking about wine and writing about wine.
- Speaker #1
You define yourself as a wine writer after almost 35 years in the field and not as a wine critic. What's the difference between wine writing and wine critics?
- Speaker #0
Good question. A wine writer is I think somebody who is there to inspire. Principally. I would almost say that's the principal role of a wine writer. You're there to inform as well, of course, but you're principally there to inspire people about this beautiful substance we call wine in all its magnificent diversity. A wine critic, as the name suggests, is somebody who is going to principally taste wine and... criticize wine, although I would say that very few critics spend much time actually criticizing wine. Most of them spend time appreciating wine. So most wine critics will be tasting an enormous amount of wine, writing notes on them, appreciating them, and nowadays giving them scores. And that, of course, can be seen to have a very useful practical purpose. But for me, There are things I don't feel too happy about. I have to do some of that myself, like all wine writers do. I have to take part in tastings. I'm involved in Decanter World Wine Awards, the world's biggest wine competition. So there are elements of, let's say, wine-critical work in what I do. But I wouldn't like to do that all the time, and I'm uncomfortable very often when I'm in that role, because I think it's wine criticism and particularly point scoring has come to... dominate the wine world to an overly large extent and it's also created some false ideas about wine. For example, it's created the idea that the most important thing in wine is excellence. In other words, the most important thing in wine or what everybody would should want or aim for in wine is to have exposure to wines with lots of points. with 93 points, with 95 points, with 97, 99 or 100. And that that is principally what wine is all about. And those are the greatest experiences in wine. And that even you can say that wines have a fixed score, that they have a fixed identity, which is a notion actually I contest to begin with. To me, the thing that really matters about wine is difference. The joy of wine... is difference. The beauty of wine is expressed through difference. Everything I love about wine, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, is connected with a sort of unique relationship, a sensual relationship with place, a sensual discovery of place through wine, expressed through a panoply of differences. So what I really love about wine is difference. And I really reject the notion that excellence should be more important than difference. To me, difference should be much more important than excellence. Difference is what wine is all about. And I'm troubled by the notion that one can actually say objectively, with great precision, that X wine is better than wine X is better than wine Y. Wine X might be better than wine Y to one palate, one afternoon, under one set of atmospheric pressures and at a certain point in that particular taster's life. But that's not to say... that it always will be or that it will be to anybody else. We all know from our own experience that taste is subjective. Philosophically, that's been established by Hume and by Kant and by others. I don't think anybody would really contest that. So to me, the emphasis that we have nowadays that criticism is sort of the ultimate validation of wine and what wine is all about and that points are really what count about wine, to me... That should be almost an appendix to the duty of opening up the wine world to people by describing and by interacting and by travelling and by meeting people and by talking to people who know certain things about wines and by opening up the world of wine in that way, rather than simply by this end-user activity of tasting, which for me, to be honest, is best done by the drinker him or herself, by the person. who's reading the Rhine writing, they should be empowered to make their own decisions. They should be empowered to have the confidence that their own taste is really what matters and not feel always that they have to take things secondhand from a critic. So to me, I admire many critics. They're hugely industrious. They have very fine palates. They're very scholarly very often, and they do a fantastic job in, as it were, ranging the wine world and surveying the wine world, ranging and surveying, but they come back with maps and I can't accept the maps. That's the problem because we're in a subjective realm. We're not in an objective realm. We're not in a realm where you can survey and produce a cartographic result. And so to me, that activity is, as I say, slightly questionable and I'm very happy. doing my little thing rather than the thing that they do. But I still respect absolutely what they do, and of course that's only my opinion. And I accept fully that there may be a practical argument to say, well, look, I don't have time to read reams about wine, I don't have time to make all my own researches, I just want quickly to know a wine that's worth trying and a wine that might be better than another wine. OK, fine, if that's what you want, they're there, and you can take that from them. But for me, that's a little bit unsatisfactory.
- Speaker #1
But wouldn't you be happier drinking only Romain Descontis, Chateau Latour, Egon Müller and Opus One, for example?
- Speaker #0
That's a horrific proposition. That's terrible. No, absolutely not. That would be incredibly boring and you'd soon tire of all those wines and you'd be screaming to be let out and have a nice glass of Fleury instead or Boros Achiras or whatever. turns you on. I mean, yeah, you know, it is all about variety and diversity. I definitely don't want to drink the same thing every night. I definitely don't want to eat the same thing every night. I definitely don't want to read the same novel 50 times. I definitely don't want to go and watch the same film 50 times. No, of course, diversity and difference is the quest. And to me, whatever inspires. readers to and empowers readers to make their own decisions and to follow their own journeys of discovery and and Be excited and be astonished At this wonderful substance. That's that's what counts. That's what I'm trying to do.
- Speaker #1
Why do you think today in the main? magazines and newspaper wine magazines Wine critics have won the battle over on the wine writers
- Speaker #0
Well, because of the practical argument that I just advanced, whether that is really what people want. I actually don't know, but I do feel that just to produce endless tastings with endless scores and endless hit parades of the wine that came first, second, third, and the wine that came 23rd and 27th and the wine that came last, it's not very interesting. My eyes glaze over when I see these enormous tastings of that sort. When I read other wine writing, I don't want endless recommendations. I just want people to tell me interesting things about places on earth and the wine that's produced in those places and the people that are producing it, producing those wines. To me, that's the richness of the subject. So I truly am perplexed as to why this whole tasting note thing has taken over to the extent that it can. And I feel certain that many people must be put off by it, actually. Many people who feel inspired by the liquid itself and come to wine writing to... to find further inspiration and sit down and open a magazine or turn on their computers and open a website and find you know
- Speaker #1
30 000 tasting notes i mean nothing could be more off-putting and boring than that i don't think so i i'm a little bit puzzled but perhaps i'm just odd so you you're starting to to write about wine at the end of the 80s where did you start to to write
- Speaker #0
Well, the first chance I ever got to write about wine professionally was to write a little book about port wine. I was thoroughly unqualified, but they wanted it done quickly and cheaply. And I was definitely cheap and I could be quick. So I did that. And to my surprise, it got reasonably well reviewed by the people that took the time of day to read it. And that gave me the confidence to... ask if I could write some articles for the magazines. One magazine in particular, which had reviewed the book quite well, which was a magazine called Wine Magazine, no longer exists, but back in the day that existed under the editor at the time, Margaret Rand. So I asked Margaret if I could write some articles for her and she said, well, I won't tell you exactly what she said, but the end result was, yes, you can under certain circumstances, which I did my best to certain parameters which I did my best to meet and it gradually built up from there. So I've been freelance pretty much all my life. I haven't ever wholly worked for one magazine or one operation. I've always been a freelance.
- Speaker #1
And today you are working for Decanter since quite a while, yeah?
- Speaker #0
Yes, I mean I've written for Decanter for over 30 years now, so we're old friends. We've seen a lot together and we've been through a lot together. And I'm very happy and they've kindly asked me to write a monthly column for them. Oh gosh, for, I don't know, at least 20 years, something like that. I've done over 250 columns for them now. So that's, as it were, my longest gig. As I also mentioned, there's a magazine called World of Fine Wine. Beautiful magazine, quarterly magazine, very different from Decanter. They're completely different operations, very different tone and very different sort of... readership, I think. And so I also write a column for every issue for that. I also write various other things for Decanter and other things for World of Fine Wine. I also write a monthly column for a British political magazine called The New Statesman and books when I get the chance.
- Speaker #1
And Noble Rot from time to time.
- Speaker #0
And Noble Rot from time to time, indeed. We mustn't forget Noble Rot, which has been a very welcome addition to the wine publishing stratosphere.
- Speaker #1
Does Noble Rot have an original tone, an original way of talking about wine?
- Speaker #0
Yes, I think Noble Rot's done a fantastic job actually in kind of refreshing, freshening up the field of wine publications. It's irreverent, not overly reverent, as to be honest some... some other publications can be from time to time. So, you know, the irreverence has been a great thing. And it's also, you know, the design is completely different from anything else that exists. It's much more youthful in its feel. It's much more... unconventional in its approach. It's hip and chaotic and good-looking and fun. And yeah, we needed all of those things in the wine world. We really needed those things. So it's come and it's brought those magnificently. You should go and talk to Dan and Mark that edit it. I'm sure they'd love to talk to you. So yeah, it's a very welcome addition.
- Speaker #1
Do we need more fun in wine, and especially in wine magazines?
- Speaker #0
I definitely think we do. I definitely think one of the problems of wine writing is that it's over-serious. You know, whenever anybody drinks wine in real life, you know, away from the geek circle, you know, they're there to have fun, to relax, to laugh, to share jokes, to hang out, to have a good time, to have moments of... crazy moments, you know. Wine is a wonderful partner for all of that. And I think people like that when they come to approach wine, and I don't think there's enough of it. I don't mean that one should be laboriously humorous in articles. That can sometimes be slightly sort of teeth-grinding. But I do think a little bit of irreverence from time to time is very welcome. And I do think... A lot of writing about wine, and particularly writing about, you know, what we call fine wine, you know, top champagnes, top burgundies, all the rest, is way, way too serious and too reverent. I mean, you can still be articulate, and you can still do your research properly, and you can still convey depth of information, but at the same time have fun. You don't have to be serious about it the whole time. And I sometimes think that, you know, that the fun bit gets forgotten in wine writing, which is a terrible shame. So I'd love to see more fun in wine writing. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Why do you think writers, journalists are so serious about wine? What's the problem? Are they afraid by something?
- Speaker #0
Yes, they may be afraid of upsetting the producer and losing access to the wine or having the producer not want to advertise in your magazine or your publication. That's one thing. But I also think that... You know, we need to open the windows of the world of wine and bring as much fresh air into the room as we can. I think quite often wine people are so obsessed with wine, you know, they eat wine, they drink wine, they sleep, they dream wine at night, they live entirely on planet wine, and that's not a very healthy place to be. So I think often this over-seriousness is because... Wine is all that matters to them and so when they come to write about something that is very important or precious or seems very important, precious or significant to them in the world of wine, they feel they can only be respectful towards it by being very serious about it. Again, I think it's a shame and I think that's not correct. I just think we all need to have a lot more fun with it, even at the top level.
- Speaker #1
You mentioned briefly… I would say, collusion or conflict of interest. Is it widespread in the world of wine writing and wine critic? How big is the problem, in your opinion?
- Speaker #0
It's a very big problem, but that's not to say that the wine world is riven by corruption, because I don't think it is, partly because I don't think the financial stakes in the wine world aren't high enough for it to be riven by corruption. So I'm not alleging... widespread corruption throughout the wine world. However, it's very difficult to be completely objective and independent in wine because of something that I make reference to in Drinking with the Valkyries, which I call wine's transactional flaw. In other words, the fact that you have to buy wine. and that many people want to buy wine, and that because of the truths of terroir, great wines are uncommon and rare and cost a lot of money. And so having access to those is very, very difficult. It's not like great literature. It's not like great music, which you can have access to for very little money. You can only have access to great wine with a great deal of money. And so those that are given access to those wines, in my opinion, it's going to be very difficult for them to be objective about those wines. That's one thing. Another thing is that obviously wine publications, I mean, I'll have to be careful about what I say here because I write for many wine publications. If you're going to write extensively about wine, if you're going to publish extensively about wine rather, and if you're going to need advertising from wine producers, and if you're going to mount wine events, and if you're going to have the participation of wine producers at your events, this is a closed circuit world where everybody has to know each other. and has to depend on each other. It's really, that's the way it has to be. I can't really see any other way that it could be. But it does mean that in any strict sense, in any journalistically strict sense, nobody writing about wine in the wine world is free of conflict of interest. And I would include myself in this. Every wine trip I've ever taken, with a few exceptions where I've been able to do things on the back of holidays or whatever, has had to be sponsored. I mean, nearly always generically, because it's a much safer form of sponsorship than individual sponsorship. But but nonetheless sponsored. You know, it's just, that's the only way it can work. I would never have been able to write about anything in the wine world if that hadn't been the case. That's a conflict of interest. If I was a wine critic, either independent or working for one of the wine critical organisations, you know, I need to be able, I need to have all the doors opening to me. I can't, you know, not go and see all the key people because then I won't be doing a good job as a wine critic. So I have to stay on good terms with those people. So I can't slam or criticise extensively the wines that they produce because obviously they're going to be unhappy and that access is going to disappear. The way that most wine critics get round this ethically is simply only ever publishing notes about the things that they really liked. And to some extent... That's a valid response because they're not being untruthful when they say they really like the wine. And when they don't really like the wine, they just don't publish the note. Therefore, they avoid the problem. But it does mean that a lot of wine criticism reads just like heavenly choirs singing. It's a little bit monotonous because everything is wonderful and everything gets 89 points and up out of 100. And if it's really good, it has to have 95 points and up. You know, again, we're back to that slight aesthetic difficulty as well. And it has, as you've, as it were, drawn the argument in this direction, it also has ethical implications too.
- Speaker #1
The difficulties you just described, if I may, sounds a bit like the kind of difficulties that some investigation journalists could encounter, because most of the time they try to write about topics. about people that may not be happy with what they are investigating about. They make their job like this, okay? Would it be possible to be a white journalist in the same way?
- Speaker #0
Well, only if you can make it pay. The best investigative journalists would be those that work for large news organizations who will pay all of their expenses and their salary. And so all they have to do is dig and dig and dig and get to the story. And fantastic stories have come out like that, as we all know. And it's a very necessary part of journalistic activity. It's wholly admirable. And it should exist also in the wine world. I think there's a lot of scope for it in the wine world. But in the end, the wine world is a small little world. It's not a particularly big world. It doesn't have huge... commercial force, it doesn't have enormous turnover. So those people who are working as investigative journalists generally wouldn't bother to spend a lot of time in the wine world because they've got, as it were, bigger fish to fry. But I do think from time to time the wine world... would be the better for having a little of that scrutiny. Not everything in the wine world is beautiful. Not everything in the wine world is wonderful. Not everything in the wine world is honest or ethical. And it would be lovely to have some of that brought to light. But you aren't going to get a wine magazine particularly to do that, I don't think, or at least not on many occasions. because they depend too much on that wine world. And of course there have been, I mean, in France, you've had journalists who've done that kind of work, and in the US too, there's been that kind of work too. There's been some scam-busting work in the UK. I mean, I did some of that when I was working for a newspaper called The Evening Standard, and had the honour to get threatened by famous libel lawyers, Carter Ruck and co. in the UK back in the day. But those were fairly simple, clearly abusive situations. Whereas a lot of the more doubtful things in the wine world are quite subtle. And you need to spend a lot of time trying to get to the bottom of it and talking to an awful lot of people. And in the end, as I said at the beginning, the corruption isn't enormous because the stakes aren't high enough. I suppose the big difference is whenever you have... counterfeiting, that's one aspect. And whenever you have a health issue, as with the you know the methanol, Italian wine, a methanol issue many years ago now, those are very uncommon actually. Well counterfeiting wasn't uncommon for a while I think it's increasing. Well you'd have to go and speak to specialists. I'm not a specialist in counterfeiting, I honestly don't know.
- Speaker #1
Do you consider yourself free in your wine writing?
- Speaker #0
That's a good question. And I do, with the proviso that I also, you know, the way I would mostly choose to interpret that freedom is that I'm allowed to follow the subjects I want to follow. I'm perhaps not free in being able to say exactly what I always want to say about everything and everybody in the wine world, because I'd quickly be out of a job. I'd be fired. You know, that sounds shocking to say, but I'm sure everybody in the wine world could say that because we all can see things that, you know, shouldn't be happening that are happening and things that we'd like to perhaps see done differently that we probably never will see done differently. But I, you know, I've never had a problem in not being able to find an interesting subject to write about. and an inspiring subject to write about, and an exciting subject to write about, or something that evokes my sense of astonishment and wonder, which is what I began with in the wine world. And so that's what I try and concentrate on, because in the end I think that's what would be the most useful thing for the readers. Again, I go back to the principal duty of the wine writer, as I said right at the beginning, should be somebody to inspire, to... to open up horizons to readers that makes the wine world a bigger, more exciting place to them, that they can then get involved with and follow and go out and be inspired for themselves.
- Speaker #1
Do you think it would be possible that a publication exists that is completely free from conflict of interest, buying the samples of wine they want to taste, for example? Is it possible, economically speaking, especially?
- Speaker #0
I don't think so, no. I mean, you know, the critical organizations do a very good job in ensuring that all the people that work for them don't accept hospitality from any organization or any particular individual. I'm not sure how well it's policed. I trust it's well policed, but they certainly pay their own way. But I don't see how anybody could really... afford to pay for every sample that ever passed their lips. It, you know, maybe if you were as rich as Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk you could, but they're not going to spend their time tasting wine and writing about wine. They're too busy making gazillions of dollars. So, yeah, it's an area which is full of gray zones, ethically, if you want to be ethically perfectionist about it. It's a difficult area. You have to rely on help. You have to rely on help. And then it does call total objectivity into question.
- Speaker #1
We talk about the difference between wine critics and wine writers. And we say that today the battle has been won a bit by the wine critics in the publications. How do you think we could... have a more balanced situation?
- Speaker #0
Well, I just, I mean, in a way, Noble Rot is a good example of the direction to head into because I don't think Noble Rot's known for its point scores. It's known for writing crazy articles about crazy wine people or having interesting interviews with interesting people doing things like that. So I think that that's the direction really that things need to head into. In other words, everything has to be done with a bit of flair and imagination and without, you know, without falling back on the same tropes over and over again and the same formulae over and over again. But, you know, I would stress that this is my view. And if we had, you know, if we had somebody else here who is used to looking and studying at the feedback they're getting from websites and from magazine surveys and all the rest, they may well say, well, look, you know, that's not what people want. People want tastings and they want recommendations and they want point scores. Okay, if that's what people want, you know, I accept it. That's fine. It's just, you know, that wasn't the wine world that attracted me in the first place. And I think you then have a sort of wine writing, which is just, you know, just, I mean, that shows that I already hold it in, in some, not in the highest regard. So perhaps I'll take that just back, but it means it's consumerist, purely consumerist writing. And I truly feel that people who want to read about wine want something more than that. You know, they may want that, that may draw them in and they may go and buy a few bottles which have got good point scores from, you know, this or that publication or whatever. But after a little bit of that, they're going to want something more. They're going to want to discover more. Their palates will begin to set off in the directions that they like. They want to find out other things that are close to that. You know, they will want to go on a journey of discovery, and they will want to be inspired. They'll want to discover new things. They will want to learn the wonderful differences that exist in wine. And they will get a bit fed up with just pursuing some asserted excellence from a set of wines, which often is spurious. And, you know, very often you might try the top-scoring wine in a tasting. and you might try a middle scoring wine and you might try a bottom scoring wine and you'll be with three or four friends and people will actually disagree about the order and then somebody amongst your friends will say well look you know that got the worst score but it's my favorite wine so what was it all worth so what was the whole point of that you know we just paid too much attention to this to this particular particular way of doing things and way of presenting wine information i just think we need to be a bit more courageous more imaginative take more risks get out close to the edge, give things a try, shake the tree a bit and have more fun.
- Speaker #1
So we are here today because last January you participated to the Ryan Reiter Symposium that took place in the USA and you opened the symposium with the opening keynote and the text has been published on the website of the symposium. And by the chance of the social networks, I've been able last week to read about it. And I sent you an email because I wanted to have this interview with you. And in this symposium, you invited people to come here on the Pic Saint-Loup to climb it with you. And we did it today, fortunately. So in this text, in this opening keynote, you talk about... writing at the edge. I want to talk about that, but right before we talk about writing at the edge, you talk about also about generative AI. Why do you think that generative AI could be a threat for wine writers and wine critics?
- Speaker #0
Well, because if you're doing something in an unimaginative way, generative AI can easily duplicate what you're doing. I mean, in the... In the speech I talked about the mainstream as opposed to the edge. And what I'm saying is that if you don't want generative AI to eat your lunch and steal your work as a journalist, you're going to have to head out towards the edge to some degree. Because if you sit in the mainstream and if you produce respectful articles which duplicate the press pack and which say nice things, nice conventional things, and give conventional scores to a range of wines, generative AI can do that very, very easily, and it will take your job in the end. At the moment, it can't do it, because generative AI is in its early stages, and it hasn't yet learned to tell the truth, for example. But sooner or later, it will learn to tell the truth, and it will learn to check facts, and it will learn where it can take risks with objective data. And it will, I mean, it's already learned tone of voice quite quickly. A tone of voice can be very convincing. And it can even model individual tones of voice. So as I say, if you're not writing something that is in some way challenging or edgy, or original, something that needs a bit of cranial jelly, if you're not getting the cranial jelly into the picture, AI is going to do it. Just as well as you fairly soon.
- Speaker #1
Yes, but AI doesn't taste, doesn't smell, and how critique or wine description could be made by AI.
- Speaker #0
You know, it's amazing, but if you sit down and read two or three hundred tasting notes, you know what people are going to say about wines. The language is all the same, you see the same words coming round and round and round, you see the new fashions arrive and the key words that equate to the new fashions. You know, the vocabulary is actually relatively limited. Nobody ever audits the vocabulary. You come up with your analogies. Nobody's ever going to say, well, is that really in there? You know, why did you write that? I bought the wine and I tasted it and I couldn't find what you said was there. Nobody ever does that. Of course not, because it's subjective. So actually, AI is going to write very good tasting notes without ever tasting wine. No question. You know, if you know who's making good wine and if you know the style of vintage and if you know what... people are looking for, the kind of adjectives they want to hear about the best wines. You can produce those notes quite easily without actually convincing notes quite easily, without having tasted their wines. Now I'm not saying that this is what anybody should do, I'm not saying this is an ethical procedure, of course not. Everybody should always taste their own wine and make their own notes based on that. And I'm sure that those critics who are doing that every year are doing it very sincerely. And indeed, if you read their notes, you can, to some extent, tell the differences between them. You can tell this note is by this critic or that note is by that critic. But there is quite a lot of commonality between the notes. And, of course, many, many users of those reports never even read the words anyway. They just look at the scores and, OK, that's got 98. That's the one I'm going for. Oh dear, that's only got 94 this year. And this is a terrible shame about this whole process. The 94-point wine might be far better than the 98-point wine under the right circumstances, given the right ageing trajectory, with the right group of guests. All of this is ridiculous anyway. But that's the way the world is at the moment. And what I'm suggesting to you is that actually, we think that because a computer can't sit down with a glass of wine and taste it, it can't produce tasting notes. Well, what I'm suggesting to you is actually it can and it will.
- Speaker #1
So what's writing at the age about wine, wine or beer or whiskey that you like and know a bit as well?
- Speaker #0
Well, you know, this speech I gave was aimed at people who want to write about wine, aspirant wine writers. So what I'm saying to them is, When you're going to write about a wine topic, don't, don't read what everybody else has written about it first. That's the worst thing you can do. Because the important thing for you to do is to discover it for yourself and to convey the excitement of your discovery, the originality of your discovery, the astonishment that is implied in your discovery. the unhappiness of your discovery if there's unhappiness in it, everything about that, but for you for the first time. And then if you do that successfully, the reader will come with you and you can walk hand in hand with the reader and make the discovery together. And that to me is the most successful wine communication. What I hate is people preaching at readers. No all bossy people telling readers what they should or shouldn't think about this or that and what the reality is about this or that and why this or that is the case and always will be and nothing will ever change. Laying down the law, I hate all of that sort of journalism. So to me, on the edge means really discovering everything for the first time yourself to the greatest extent possible. And that's true even if you've covered things before. If you've covered En Primaire in Bordeaux every year for 20 years and you go there on the 21st year, you need to try and go there as if you've never tasted a glass of Bordeaux before, as if you're discovering the whole thing for the first time all over again, to be a completely sensitive medium for all those impressions that are going to cascade down towards you and to try and... be excited and be passionate about those and convey it all in the most original way you can. And I mean, really, be original. Use imaginative techniques. Don't do things the way you did them last year or the year before. Do them a completely different way. Challenge the reader. Use your imagination. Imagination has a role in wine writing. Imagination has a role in non-fiction writing, just as it does in fiction writing. All the best non-fiction writing is also imaginative writing. It's not just fiction that is imaginative writing. It's the imagination that sets fire to things, that illuminates things from within. So what I'm trying to convey to people is that that's what you should nourish and nurture in yourself when you sit down to write about a particular topic, even if you've covered it ten times before. That's what I try and do.
- Speaker #1
Do you think that balance has become an edge nowadays? Balance, skepticism, sourcing information? Taking time to think and feel. Is it an edge today?
- Speaker #0
Yes, I mean, to me those are all essential prerequisites for doing a good job. Certainly fact-checking is absolutely important. Never take anything for granted and always go back to source and verify everything all the time with everybody. Balance, I think, has always been... I mean, there's nothing new about balance. There's nothing particularly original about balance. You know, balance is a universal journalistic desideratum for sure.
- Speaker #1
If I may refine my question, by balance I mean that it seems today to me that a lot of people try to be original by being radical. Do we lack sometimes a bit of balance in the sense of... Yeah, maybe sometime we could see both sides of a question, of an argument, and we miss that a bit today.
- Speaker #0
Yes, well, I mean, one thing I've talked about already in this interview is that I'm not sort of fond of the, you know, the hieratic, the priestly role of the wine writer. And of course, you know, when you adopt that role, then you advance your opinion as being the opinion to follow. And of course there's always another side to every question. So yes, I do think balance is important in that sort of way. But equally, a lot of wine writing almost has no opinion in it at all. People are very afraid to express their opinions because they're afraid to upset people, or afraid to come out on one side or another. So they just retreat and just reproduce data. And that's not very interesting. So I do also think it's important to express opinions. And not be afraid to express opinions. And if something strikes you as ridiculous or stupid, you should say so. You can try and say it in a tactful way, of course, but you should say that. But yes, there's always... I mean, part of discovering something for the first time is being open to all possible points of view about that subject. So, you know, what I'm trying to advance is this sort of... Radical innocence, approach every subject with a radical innocence, and perhaps a radical innocence implies being open to every point of view within a topic. But when you are convinced of something and when you strongly believe that, you shouldn't be afraid of saying so.
- Speaker #1
This is the main advice that you would tell to a young wine writer today?
- Speaker #0
What is the main advice I would give to a young wine writer?
- Speaker #1
I mean, you just said... What I understand is that don't be afraid about writing or telling what you feel in your heart. Would it be the main advice that you would give to a young wine writer?
- Speaker #0
Yes, that would be the main advice, coupled with the advice to take writing very seriously. Because another problem with the wine world is that people are super keen on wine. and therefore want to write about wine and know an awful lot about wine and are wine experts and all the rest and wine geeks and you know wine qualifications whatever you want but they're not particularly good writers uh and write you know trying to write well and you can everybody has the ability to write better than the way they began to write to begin with so you can improve you can you can give some attention to that and i think people do need to give a lot of attention to that because That's the best way to convey what you have to say most memorably. And if you convey it memorably, the readers will enjoy it to the maximum extent. You will inspire the most people. And also you're most likely to get another commission afterwards.
- Speaker #1
Do you remember the first time you have been positively shocked by a wine?
- Speaker #0
Well, it depends how we define shocked. But I mean, I remember drinking champagne, you know, the first time I drank champagne with my brother. my middle brother, I've got two brothers, and we looked at each other and we said, you know, this tastes of vomit, because it was a very acidic drink. And the only thing that we'd actually had in our mouths before that was that acidic was the sensation of stomach acid in the mouth after you've been sick. So therefore we concluded champagne tasted of vomit. And it took a while before, well, we, you know. we quite quickly got the hang of it and came to realize that there was a lot more to it than that. But that was a shocking experience, for example.
- Speaker #1
Do you remember the first time you feel the real joy of wine?
- Speaker #0
Yes. You know, I can't actually remember, you know, the producer and the vintage and all of that. But it was it was a bottle of Beaujolais, in fact, which is when I was at university. And I was lodging in rather a strange household and large meals with very eclectic bunch of guests used to be organized from time to time. And I do remember that, you know, one of these lunches that we, Sunday lunches I think it was, you know, there was some Beaujolais served. And I just remember the sort of the drinking, the way that you couldn't really stop drinking. It was so drinkable, you couldn't stop drinking it. The drinkability as well as the beautiful flavor, as well as the beautiful aroma. as well as what it did to your mind, all of those I knew about already. But there was something in that Beaujolais that was so drinkable, so gouléant, so irresistible, you just couldn't stop drinking it, and that was a real eye-opener. And then, as far as intricate grape wine was concerned, I was lucky enough just to have a little bit of money when the 1982 Bordeauxs first came out. which my great aunt had left me. She left me 350 pounds in her will after she died, my great aunt. And I remember I, you know, I was getting interested in wine and I saw that there was this thing called En Primaire Bordeaux and they were meant to be really good. So I took a punt and spent this money on a case of Pichon Lalande 82 and a case of La Grange Saint-Julien 82. And, you know. took delivery of them both quite quickly which was just as well because the person i bought them from later went bust and a lot of people didn't get their wine um but i got mine and uh you know we tried this 82 pichon aland and oof it was gorgeous it was really really good uh and i drank it with some friends and we often had it and we drunk the lot quite quickly and it was fantastic so that was another good experience shocking shockingly good experience
- Speaker #1
Maybe you drank them quite quickly because you are more into young wines, I would say, than old wines. Yeah? Why?
- Speaker #0
Well, chiefly because I don't have a fantastic cellar full of many wonderful old wines. I'm sure they'd be lovely too if I had access to them. No, but also I do think that a lot of wine is sort of, you know, drunk perhaps a little bit too late. I've often been at big wine tastings and, you know, tasted the older vintages and thought, really, you know, would it really not have been better a little bit earlier? So that's something I do. think i do would stress to people that it's worth doing is you know if you get a case of really good wine and and you know the tasting the critical tasting note says it'll be best in between 2032 and 2039 or whatever and you bought it in 2025 don't feel that you have to wait till 2032 before you try the first bottle because it could well be absolutely delicious right from the word go and and uh yeah you may find that it you pleases your taste more when it's eight years than it's when it's 28 years old you just don't know that's not i'm not saying that beautiful aged wine isn't beautiful it certainly is and some wines are even more beautiful than when they're young but i also think that quite a lot of wines are even more beautiful when they're young than when they're sort of too old especially vintage port right yes well vintage port is something i i yeah i mean drinking with the valkyries that the title piece of writing, the title piece of writing in that book is all about, I'm urging people to drink vintage port when it's very young, because there is no other experience in the wine world quite as exciting as that. You know, you might find it a bit frightening, and it might be a bit over-awing, and it might be, you might think, what the hell is this? But, you know, it's a most extraordinary experience. And if you taste it when it's fully mature, when it's 30 or 40 years old. It'll be very graceful and very lovely, but you won't get any of that visceral thrill that you will have when you taste it when it's young. And I really think it's worth enjoying that.
- Speaker #1
In the same idea, I have to admit that I recently discovered the vintage Moray from the south of France, so fortified wines or so. And I realized that prior to that, I had only drunk, I think, aged Moray that are... on an oxidative style and I discovered how fruity are vintage Maury and I had so much pleasure. I was not ready for that and that was quite an experience.
- Speaker #0
Another wine I think which is some I actually prefer young to when it's much older is Sauternes. I'm a big Sauternes fan, love Sauternes. I think it's absolutely the most sensual wine out there. Absolutely exquisite. I love having it as a really luxurious aperitif. And I love it when it's young. And when it's old, it gets sort of more caramelly and more tangy. And to be honest, I find it less, again, I would use the word visceral. There's something rather viscerally appealing about young Sauternes. It has a sort of sexiness to it, really, which disappears when it becomes old and tangy and a little bit... brown and golden and all the rest. So it's a question of taste. But I do think that there is a cult of old wine which isn't always merited.
- Speaker #1
You talked previously about champagne. This gives me an opportunity to talk about English wines. Do you think that the future is bright for English wines?
- Speaker #0
The future is very bright for English wines. And I'm almost tempted to say unfortunately. The only reason I say unfortunately is because... England is very definitely a beneficiary of climate change, or English wine production is very definitely a beneficiary of climate change. And of course climate change is a total catastrophe, globally speaking. So that's what I mean by unfortunately. But there are a few places which will benefit from it, and English wine production, English vineyards are some of those places. There are things that you can now produce in the UK. which you could never have produced 20 or 30 years ago. And there's much more, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, people were trying to produce still Germanic wines in the UK. Now they've understood that actually the really exciting potential is for sparkling wine. And you can produce shockingly good sparkling wines in the UK now, for sure. And that will carry on being the case. It's never going to be a smooth journey, because with climate change, Unpredictability is always going to be part of the mix. And wild weather and exaggerated weather and crazy weather and it hasn't been a very... easy vintage so far in the UK this year, 2024. But nowadays, it is generally possible every year to make truly exciting wine in the UK, and that didn't used to be the case.
- Speaker #1
In the same way, do you think that the future is bright for still wine in Champagne?
- Speaker #0
That's another interesting question. And yes, I mean, logically, one would say yes. You know, logically, that's... Coteau Champenois should become more and more balanced and structured and more and more compelling. But I honestly haven't, perhaps it's because I haven't been very exposed to those wines, but I haven't had much chance to taste really exciting still wines from Champagne in recent years. And of course, looked at from the point of view of the Champenois, I think probably their profit margins for outstanding Champagne are much, much bigger than they will ever be for still wines. It's very much in their interest to carry on producing champagne. And I'm sure they can do that very satisfactorily for some decades yet. But whether we can say for some centuries, I'm not sure.
- Speaker #1
So Andrew, it's time for the last traditional question. How are you happy with what you do in wine today?
- Speaker #0
Am I happy? Yes, very happy. I enjoy it enormously. I'm lucky enough as a journalist to be able to write. With much more liberty perhaps than many journalists can. And I'm lucky enough also to have many different activities in the wine world to do. Educational work, some restaurant consulting, and educational work, travelling with students to wine regions, which I enjoy enormously. And also tasting work with competitions and so on. So yes, I'm very lucky, very happy. Thank you very much.
- Speaker #1
Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much Andrew for this wonderful and enriching moment. I am Romain Becker and you are listening to Le Bon Grain de l'Ivresse. Post-production has been done by Emmanuel Nappé. Thanks to Emmanuel Doré for the original music and to Lena Mazilu for the graphic design. Dear listeners, party hard, only with good wine. Cheers!
