Too much Merlot

When I first started drinking wine, he wine drinking world was governed by where the wine producers or the names of them, were, so whether it was Burgundy, or Riesling, or Tokay, or whether it was Mateus Rosé or Blue Nun, we drank and enjoyed our wine and were governed in our choices and tastes by comparing the different châeaux or bodegas or other wine producers.

In the late seventies I went to visit my dear friend who lived in the States, in the lovely and very beautiful Washington State, and we went to visit some friends of hers. As usual I was helping in the kitchen, and as usual I had a very nice glass of wine beside me. A guest to the get together, a very beautiful Anglo-American woman was also helping in the kitchen, and I was astounded to learn that she was the wife of someone who was a friend of T.S.Eliot… and in fact her husband Bill referred to him as ‘Tom’ when he talked about him. This lovely woman, whose name I have forgotten took a slurp of wine and pulled a face, saying it had ‘too much merlot’. I was totally baffled and asked her what she meant. She told me there was a grape variety called merlot, and in her opinion there was too much of it in the blend of wine.

She told me to drink it again, and compare it to a different wine, and she told me the characteristics she recognized of the different grapes making up the vintage I was drinking. Her comments made a great impression on me, and since then it has become the thing to do her to buy wine by the grape variety and maybe the origin for the style of wine production,  rather than the chateau or the family producing it… although obviously many people do have their particular favourites.

I was in the pub tonight, and wanted a glass of wine rather than a beer… and chose by grape rather than colour or producer… I couldn’t help but think of Bill’s wife… ‘too much merlot!’