Changed world

Although worrying about the Fox has dominated my days of late, as you will probably have realised by now, it hasn’t been the only thing. During all his resting I’ve been reading Tony Laithwaite’s autobiography, “Direct”.  For those who don’t know Tony Laithwaite is the founder of what was Bordeaux Direct, now Laithwaites, a leading wine club/seller in this country. I gather these days he has offices in Australia & USA too. We were sent this book free as long established purchasers of his wines. We’ve bought the majority of our wine through his company for the last 25 or so years.

What really struck me is how life has changed. In the 60s when the business was set up the wine business was very different. Wine tended to be exported in barrels & bottes when it arrived in this country. Most food shops did not sell wine. For wine you had to go to a separate, rather snooty elite wine shop. Most of the cheaper wines were pretty gut-rotting stuff. Indeed, in those days, wine was something only drunk at church or if you were of a certain class. We weren’t.

In the 70s wine became more available. A lot of it was cheap Spanish plonk or rather sweet German wines. It did little for us.

With the years & new techniques the standard of wine has improved immeasurably. It’s brought into this country already bottled (or even boxed). It’s become a standard drink to be found in any restaurant, pub, party, fridge. Few people in this country don’t indulge in it at some point.

As for us, although I always had an inkling it may be something interesting, it wasn’t until we started going to France regularly in the 1990s, that we really discovered wine. That, too, was the time we saw an ad for Bordeaux Direct wines & thought that would solve most of Xmas present problems. We bought the wine in November, thought we ought to just taste some before we gave it away, & ended up having to buy another case before Xmas. We’ve not looked back.

Why do we stick with Laithwaites in these days when supermarkets & corner shops sell so much wine? At first it was due to our ignorance. We had bought the odd bottle for dinner parties, but we felt it was pure pot luck whether what we bought was drinkable. Laithwaites often sent tasting notes which helped us understand a label, to know what we are looking for. We also got to know the places where the grapes were grown & the people who made the wine. Even now, we are more confident of getting a more enjoyable bottle of wine through this wine club than one we buy off the shelf. We find the range of wines & their prices reasonable & the mixed cases offered convenient. There have been hiccoughs from time to time but nothing so bad as to drive us away.

We have to admit, like Tony, we have enjoyed our adventure, trying new grape varieties, discovering new wines, new areas of the world where they come from. Dinner these days seems a poorer thing without an accompanying wine. With luck the wine can enhance the food, the food can enhance the wine. We love it & will probably continue as members of Laithwaites wine club for the rest of our drinking lives.

Life has changed in so many other ways since the 60s. Computers, mobile phones, easy communication with other countries (you no longer have to book a time for international phone calls), increased travel (few people went abroad in those days unless you were very wealthy), air transport & cars have become ubiquitous (again only for the wealthy then), central heating, double glazing, duvets (we still prefer old fashioned blankets), microwaves, freezers, baths & showers inside houses. The list seems endless. And I confess I do wonder if some of these changes are always to the better. Maybe that just goes to show I’m getting old & less adaptable.