The tyranny of wine

Is the hegemony of wine finally over?

At most parties, the choice is between red or white wine. You might get champagne if you’re very lucky, prosecco if you’re not. It makes me think back nostalgically to the spread my parents used to put on. My father would line up bottles of gin, whisky, brandy, and vermouth on the kitchen counter. He’d even get the Drambuie out, though I don’t remember there being any takers. Everyone had their particular drink: my aunt would have a Martini and tonic, my grandfather drank brandy and soda, and we, the boys, would have beer. One extravagant year my father made champagne cocktails. But each year there were fewer and fewer takers for the drinks smorgasbord. The last whisky and soda drinker, my grandmother, died in 2011.  

Kingsley Amis throwing gang signs

The old drinks were pushed out by what Kingsley Amis calls the ‘tyranny of wine’. Wine, once the preserve of the upper classes, became the norm in the 1980s and ‘90s as cheap drinkable plonk became available for the first time.The revolution in quality everyday wine was spearheaded by Germany but it was when Australian, Chilean, and New Zealand wine arrived that Britain, at last, became a wine drinking nation. Wine was aspirational and modern, whereas traditional British drinks were seen as a bit naff.

Of course, we got it slightly wrong. You wouldn’t catch the southern Europeans drinking wine without food. The Italians have Campari, Aperol, and all those marvelous bitter drinks; the French being a little crazy like to drink port or sauternes (both of not terribly good quality) before a meal. Older Spaniards drink sherry, younger ones vermouth, beer or impeccably made gin and tonics. All are big Scotch drinkers. 

These continental johnnies were on to something. Drinking wine on its own is often not a terribly pleasant experience. Amis used to complain that wines “irritate the large intestine”. I’ve never had problems that far down but I do suffer from acid indigestion. Drinking lots of wine, even the good stuff, on an empty stomach will have you reaching for the Gaviscon. 

Wine may have improved dramatically since Amis’s day but it’s still far from straightforward. Your wine might be corked, it might be too young or too old. Even if there’s nothing actually wrong with it, wine at parties can be a dispiriting experience, jammy reds and thin acidic whites both served too warm. I attended one put on by the Daily Mail a couple of years ago. There while I was telling someone that I write about wine for a living, she glanced down and said “ah, and I see you’re drinking beer”, and laughed. The more you get into wine, unfortunately, the less time you have for the confected, the sour, or the just plain dull. And wine is much too expensive what with duty, VAT, and the current unfavourable exchange rates. Nowadays you have to search harder to find a good bottle at a reasonable price. 

You don’t have to try very hard to find a good bottle of whisky. Whereas branded wines are, on the whole, boring, big name spirits: Beefeater gin, Johnnie Walker whisky, Havana Club rum, are excellent and reliable. When was the last time you had a disappointing bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label? I’ll tell you when, never. And as spirits last pretty much forever once opened, you can offer a generous selection to your guests including a dusty bottle of Drambuie. 

There are some such, King Charles III, a keen dry martini drinker, who have never lost faith in traditional British spirits, but now I detect that what Amis called ‘pro-wine pressure’ is finally easing. The wine market overall is in decline since 2012 with only prosecco and rosé seeing growth. In contrast, spirit sales are buoyant especially rum and whisky, though the long gin boom does seem to be finally over. Younger people especially are enjoying cocktails once more while the wine industry is in a panic that its customers are getting older and older. From experience, I’ve noticed people my own age - mid forties - offering a choice of gins and whiskies, and a bottle of Campari is once again de rigeur. 

This doesn’t mean that I’m turning my back on wine but I tend to drink it mainly when I’m eating. My aperitif of choice is my grandmother’s favourite, the whisky and soda. She liked it so much that when she went deaf, I‘d ask her how she was, and she’d reply, ‘whisky.’ It’s the most wonderfully versatile of drinks: you can use almost any whisky though I think a blend with a bit of smoke works best; you can jazz it up with orange peel and a dash of bitters, or just have it plain; you can make it strong, or as weak as a kitten; and it sits well on an empty stomach so your Gaviscon bills will plummet.  

Another happy side effect of swapping wine for whisky, is that I’m drinking less. I’m not tempted to finish the bottle as I do with wine (well maybe a little, but that way madness lies). Furthermore, I’ve lost weight. I now plan to make my fortune from penning a bestselling book called the “the whisky and soda diet”, which is likely to supersede the 5:2 as the diet of choice for the chattering classes.

More than health though, offering a range of drinks is fun especially if you have a drinks trolley or a bar like my grandfather had so you can play the home barman, mixing drinks, and dispensing bon mots. So much more fun than chat about house prices or Brexit. The tyranny of wine is finally over. I am sure Amis père would approve.