Ah. So it looks like the DVD I have is not complete. The DVD menu suggests 3 episodes from series 1 and 6 from series 2 (which are obviously later - with different title sequences and better quality). I did find this blog post about the DVD (which is seems I did actually buy from Jancis Robinson) - which mentions that it is missing some episodes. http://winesweden.blogspot.com/2008/08/vintners-tales-dvd.html
Never done that before but I'm happy to give it a go. How hard can it be!? Will I have Jancis legal team after me? Happy to send you the actual DVD if you'd like it. I'm unlikely to watch it and my kids will send it to Oxfam or the bin eventually.
I feel that the world won't be righted until shoulder pads return and not in an ironic manner. But, how is it that any series on British television always looks like it was shot 20 years before it was?
Bill Baker …. I was having lunch alone at Gidleigh Park and ordered a glass of wine and a voice boomed out behind me: “Just a glass? You must really be having a problem.” It was Baker, also alone, but with a full bottle on his table. He invited me to join him (“If you’re that down, it’ll just about last, if you cheer up, next one’s on you!”) And we had another typical Baker lunch, great all around. Love to see him with Jancis—not the usual for either.
I was in a press tasting with Jancis and we had bar stools and little brown tables to rest our glasses on.Jancis politely asked one of the assistants to get a plain white sheet of A4 paper so that she could accurately assess the colour of the wines.Real class!
Sadly the 1998 versions don't appear anywhere. Or not all of them as far as I can see. Having been part of the Richards Walford one, I know it certsinly made for an entertaining watch. Some of the outtakes were even better....
How very satisfying to see you enjoyed it enough to post about it. A few initial thoughts in no particular order.
(1) I think wine will continue to attract interesting (and also utterly dreadful) people. It's simply in the nature of the beast. J.P. Moueix (as described by Simon Loftus in Anatomy of the Wine Trade) must have looked at the class of 1990 as fairly tame fish ("The love of art and literature, of French culture in all its forms, of language, is a manifestation of Jean-Pierre's most impressive and secret achievement, the making of himself").
(2) Jancis versus Broadbent is amusing as she gently deflates his Everest levels of pomposity. However, the prize really must go to Jancis versus Michel Roux in the Roux Brothers 80s cooking course on the BBC. You ask how the BBC could make Vintner's Tales now, a greater stretch is them making something as uncompromising and technical as Cooking with the Roux Brothers. Low production values, but still a masterclass in the best traditions of French Cooking. Jancis pops up for an episode on entertaining (to talk about matching food with wine) where she sits in the garden of The Waterside Inn as Michel attempts to seduce her on camera in comically gallic style and she keeps her poise (cool and flinty as a Loire Sav Blanc wine) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzqWNylF_64
(3) Janis is a class act and just generally a very cool person in my view - her Desert Island discs makes that clear -available in their archives as a podcast.
(4) She's also sufficiently stylish that my wife has sat through her Wine Course for the clothes alone despite having no interest in Wine.
(5) Her wine course is still a great watch - the best of which is her episode in Cabernet Sauvignon which is basically 30 minutes of her destroying the pretensions of an arriviste Parisian banker who has bought up some vineyards in Bordeaux hoping to make a splash after making a pile in credit card strips. The final withering comment "One year on, they were taking in paying guests" is brilliant. Anthony Barton also features and is total class. Should have been an ambassador. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNMYF2IGVHM)
(6) Bill Baker steals the show in terms of charm and just a lovely bloke.
(7) Your comment about everyone being well-dressed is so noteworthy.
Thank you for all this. I'll take a look at the Roux clip now. Totally agree about Anthony Barton. I was very lucky to have lunch with him at Langoa with his wife and mine. An absolute gent and such good company. Great wines too, we had the '82 and '86 Leoville-Barton, plus vintage Pol Roger to start.
Sounds like a grand lunch on every level. I hadn’t seen the Hugh Johnson history documentary but it’s on YouTube and quite interesting. I watched some of it last night whilst enjoying Luc et Denis Lattard’s 2021 Gamay.
I have a DVD of series 1 and 2 of this but I have no idea where I got it from. I'll have to give it another watch.
Could you put series 2 on Youtube please? Don't ask me how you do that.
I think I've actually done it. Try going to https://www.youtube.com/@KevinGoodall/videos and hopefully you will be able to view the 6 episodes from series 2.
and as I'm on a roll (and have a little glass of Chartreuse) I'm going to stick the 3 episodes from series 1 on as well.
I can only see the first series.
Ah. So it looks like the DVD I have is not complete. The DVD menu suggests 3 episodes from series 1 and 6 from series 2 (which are obviously later - with different title sequences and better quality). I did find this blog post about the DVD (which is seems I did actually buy from Jancis Robinson) - which mentions that it is missing some episodes. http://winesweden.blogspot.com/2008/08/vintners-tales-dvd.html
Never done that before but I'm happy to give it a go. How hard can it be!? Will I have Jancis legal team after me? Happy to send you the actual DVD if you'd like it. I'm unlikely to watch it and my kids will send it to Oxfam or the bin eventually.
I feel that the world won't be righted until shoulder pads return and not in an ironic manner. But, how is it that any series on British television always looks like it was shot 20 years before it was?
The '80s went on for a long time in England.
Bill Baker …. I was having lunch alone at Gidleigh Park and ordered a glass of wine and a voice boomed out behind me: “Just a glass? You must really be having a problem.” It was Baker, also alone, but with a full bottle on his table. He invited me to join him (“If you’re that down, it’ll just about last, if you cheer up, next one’s on you!”) And we had another typical Baker lunch, great all around. Love to see him with Jancis—not the usual for either.
What a great story. I would have loved to have met him in his prime.
I was in a press tasting with Jancis and we had bar stools and little brown tables to rest our glasses on.Jancis politely asked one of the assistants to get a plain white sheet of A4 paper so that she could accurately assess the colour of the wines.Real class!
Let us not forget Malcolm Gluck’s (ad agency copywriter/creative director) BBC Series: “Gluck Gluck Gluck”. He was something of a consumer hero
Sadly the 1998 versions don't appear anywhere. Or not all of them as far as I can see. Having been part of the Richards Walford one, I know it certsinly made for an entertaining watch. Some of the outtakes were even better....
How very satisfying to see you enjoyed it enough to post about it. A few initial thoughts in no particular order.
(1) I think wine will continue to attract interesting (and also utterly dreadful) people. It's simply in the nature of the beast. J.P. Moueix (as described by Simon Loftus in Anatomy of the Wine Trade) must have looked at the class of 1990 as fairly tame fish ("The love of art and literature, of French culture in all its forms, of language, is a manifestation of Jean-Pierre's most impressive and secret achievement, the making of himself").
(2) Jancis versus Broadbent is amusing as she gently deflates his Everest levels of pomposity. However, the prize really must go to Jancis versus Michel Roux in the Roux Brothers 80s cooking course on the BBC. You ask how the BBC could make Vintner's Tales now, a greater stretch is them making something as uncompromising and technical as Cooking with the Roux Brothers. Low production values, but still a masterclass in the best traditions of French Cooking. Jancis pops up for an episode on entertaining (to talk about matching food with wine) where she sits in the garden of The Waterside Inn as Michel attempts to seduce her on camera in comically gallic style and she keeps her poise (cool and flinty as a Loire Sav Blanc wine) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzqWNylF_64
(3) Janis is a class act and just generally a very cool person in my view - her Desert Island discs makes that clear -available in their archives as a podcast.
(4) She's also sufficiently stylish that my wife has sat through her Wine Course for the clothes alone despite having no interest in Wine.
(5) Her wine course is still a great watch - the best of which is her episode in Cabernet Sauvignon which is basically 30 minutes of her destroying the pretensions of an arriviste Parisian banker who has bought up some vineyards in Bordeaux hoping to make a splash after making a pile in credit card strips. The final withering comment "One year on, they were taking in paying guests" is brilliant. Anthony Barton also features and is total class. Should have been an ambassador. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNMYF2IGVHM)
(6) Bill Baker steals the show in terms of charm and just a lovely bloke.
(7) Your comment about everyone being well-dressed is so noteworthy.
Thank you for all this. I'll take a look at the Roux clip now. Totally agree about Anthony Barton. I was very lucky to have lunch with him at Langoa with his wife and mine. An absolute gent and such good company. Great wines too, we had the '82 and '86 Leoville-Barton, plus vintage Pol Roger to start.
Sounds like a grand lunch on every level. I hadn’t seen the Hugh Johnson history documentary but it’s on YouTube and quite interesting. I watched some of it last night whilst enjoying Luc et Denis Lattard’s 2021 Gamay.
I would love to see that!