Financial Times Europe - 19.10.2019 - 20.10.2019

19 October/20 October 2019 ★ FTWeekend 19

The raising

of a glass

H

ave you noticed how

expensive wine is

becoming? For those of

us in Brexit-torn Britain,

it might be tempting to

blame it on the decline of the pound,

since so much of the wine we import

comes from the eurozone.

But wineinflation is a worldwide

phenomenon, and it applies to wines

from the bottom to the top of the scale.

In the past few years — thanks to that

plummeting pound, successive duty

increases and he fact that the Britisht

wine market has at last started to

shrink — even UK supermarket prices

have been escalating.

The big retailers need to maintain

turnover, and the £5 bottle has become

a distant memory for those wanting a

wine with any character; £8 or even

£10 has become the new normal.

With notable exceptions — the

Germans and Dutch, for example —

other wine drinkers tend to be much

less penny-pinching than us Brits. By

contrast, it can seem as though certain

Chinese and US buyers actively seek

out high price tags on bottles. Until

recently, sales were soaring in both

countries, though volume sales are

slowing down now.

At the top end of the scale, there

doesn’t seem to beany sort of brake on

price rises. You have only to look at the

remorseless rises of Bordeaux first-

growths, emblematic trophy wines that

can easily cost £500 a bottle. These

have been actively sold as luxury

goods. And, just like the LVMH

stablemates of some of them (notably

Château Cheval Blanc and Château

d’Yquem), producers are busy trying to

forge direct links with the end-buyer

rather thanrely on Bordeaux’s many-

linked distribution chain.

Now that Burgundy has become the

height of fashion, the region’s most

revered wines — grands crus from the

top-drawer producers — have

leapfrogged Bordeaux first-growth

prices in the past few years.

A bottle of Domaine Armand

Rousseau’s Chambertin, for example,

would cost a four-figure sum — except

it would rarely be offered by the single

bottle. It would much more likely be

traded by the stratospherically priced

case on the fine wine merry-go-round,

escalating with every deal, perhaps

never to be drunk.

This price inflation has percolated

down the Burgundian hierarchy. At

least one London fine wine importer

blames the internet. Speaking off the

record for fear of losing his precious

allocations, he told me: “The problem

is they can see what their wines are

selling for all over the world now, and

they want a bigger share of it.”

The days when producers added a

modest percentage to their production

costs are long gone.

A crucial factor in all this ambitious

pricing is that nowadays the number —

and wealth — of people keen to buy

famous wines is considerably greater

than it was even 20 years ago.

A producer with a reputation knows

that if a budget-conscious British or

American buyer snubs its trophy wine,

there will be a collector in Asia, Russia

or Brazil who will be only too glad to

take up the slack. And they will

probably open rather than hoard it.

The succession of short vintages

(with low yields) in Burgundy this

decade has coincided with a rapid rise

in demand. With not enough Burgundy

to go round, better-known producers

in, say, the Rhône and fashionable

parts of Italy increased their prices.

(California, with its ready-made, well-

heeled domestic market, needed no

such encouragement; after all, Silicon

Valley is but a brief limo ride from

Napa Valley.)

But at least in Burgundy there is an

accepted hierarchy of appellations and

long-held reputations. How does a

newer producer in a region without

much of an international reputation

price their wine?

Not so long ago, it seemed that

newcomers’ prices were relatively

modest initially, until reputations

and/or high scores were won. But now

I’m seeing moreproducers diving in at

the deep end, asking reallyambitious

prices from the start.

They may be emboldened by the fact

that even if less wine is being drunk in

many countries — especially Britain,

where no- and low-alcohol drinks are

as much in fashion as gin or craft beer

— drinkers are tending to trade up.

Those who treat themselves to one

really special bottle at weekendsare

starting to encroach on the little-and-

often brigade.

On UK shelves and retail wine lists,

I view £10 to £25 a bottle as the sweet

spot that is likely to be of most interest

to my readers (and I will try tofocus on

this price bracket in my four weeks of

specific recommendations leading up

to Christmas). But it is becoming

increasingly difficult to find wines of

real interest under £25 a bottle.

The Languedoc should be a source of

great-value French wine because land

is relatively inexpensive and only

producers such as Grange des Pères

and Mas de Daumas Gassac have

established international reputations.

But when I tasted a range of wines

from relative newcomers this summer,

prices were all over the place — up to

€40 a bottle ex-cellar, without much

apparent logic or justification.

I had the great pleasure of tasting

through the current range of wines

from an ambitious 15-year-old wine

estate, La Pèira, established on rocky

hillsides in the Languedoc’s Terrasses

du Larzac appellation.

Thedelicious top red, also called La

Pèira, retails for about £50 a bottle,

which I presume is quite a difficult sell,

even though it is every bit as good as

many red Bordeaux at the same price.

Perhaps owner Rob Dougan should

have copied Will Berliner, an American

who settled in Western Australia’s

Margaret River region only a few years

ago, started to grow and make his own

wine, and decided to begin at the top.

Qantas Wine is currently offering his

2016 Cloudburst Cabernet at A$350

(almost £200) a bottle. His neighbours

may be envious, but they are also

delighted by the permission it gives

them to raise their prices. As virtually

everyone else seems to be doing.

More columns at ft.com/

jancis-robinson

cCôtes du Rhône

rouge

cBordeaux crus

bourgeois

cLoire whites —

especially

Muscadet

cBeaujolais

cAlto Piemonte

Jancis’s pick of wines that

seem underpriced (for now)

Jancis Robinson

Wine

O

ur gateway to Ameri-

canbaking s ouri col-

league Bridget Fojcik,

who grew up in Seattle.

She introduced us to

the US baking traditions, including

recipes with wholesome names such

as berry crisp, rice crispy treats and

pumpkinchiffonpie.

One of the crowning glories of this

great American tradition is the Ger-

manchocolate cake. It is a gothic

creation, a Wagner opera of a cake,

withlayersofchocolateyspongeand

coconut buttercream, knobbly bits

of pecan and an icing of more choco-

late,morecoconutandmorepecans.

If none of these components

sounds very German, that’s because

they aren’t. Samuel German was an

American baker, possibly of English

origin, who developed baking choc-

olate for The Baker Chocolate Com-

pany in the 1850s. The recipecan be

traced back to Texas in the 1950s. It

hasbecomeanationaltreasure.

We usually forget Bridget’s birth-

day but she never forgets ours.

Whenever there is something to cel-

ebrate, we know she’ll stay up the

night before, layering good wishes

forusincoconutandchocolate.

But this year we did manage to get

our act together and bake a cake for

her birthday. It wasn’t a foot high or

layered and it didn’t take all night to

make—infact,thiswasaquickmix-

and-bakenumber,achocolate-coco-

nut combo but with the nuts

replacedbysharppassionfruit.

It wasn’t German or American,

butitwasverygood—andafineway

tocelebrateaclosefriend.

[email protected]

Once more,

with passion

Cookery| This quick mix-and-bake number is a fine way to celebrate a

friend’s birthday, write Honey & Co’sSarit PackerandItamar Srulovich

A dairy-free chocolate, passion fruit and coconut cake

To make a 22cm cake

Ingredients

For the cake mix

200g coconut milk

2 eggs

80g passion fruit flesh (from 4-6 fruits,

epending on their size)d

175g sugar

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

50g cocoa powder

140g spelt flour (or plain if you prefer)

80g chopped dark chocolate (we used

70 per cent)

3 tbs desiccated coconut (30g)

125g coconut oil (just melted, not hot)

For the passion-fruit icing

120g icing sugar

20g passion-fruit pulp (about 1-2)

Method

Heat your oven to 170C (fan assist).

Stir the coconut milk, eggs and

passion fruit together and whisk to

combine. Mix the sugar, baking

powder, salt, cocoa powder and spelt

flour in a large bowl.

Then mix in the wet ingredients and

stir a little, but don’t bother to

combine until you add the chopped

chocolate, desiccated coconut and

melted coconut oil.Fold to an even

mass,try not to over-mix, just combine.

Transfer to a lined 22cm springform

baking tin and pop into the centre of

the oven for 20 minutes. Rotate the

cake for an even bake and cook for a

further 20 minutes. Check the cake —

it should start to crack.

It will probably take another 10

minutes to bake fully but, depending

on your oven, you might want to lower

the heat a bit if it starts getting too

dark. It is done when it seems bouncy

but not fully firm as the chocolate and

spelt flour will keep it moist.

Remove the cake from the oven and

leave to cool for a few minutes. Then

remove the side of the tin and turn on

to a flat plate, leaving the base of the

tin to press it down for 15 minutes.

Remove the base and let the cake cool

entirely before icing.

To ice, simply mix the icing sugar

with the passion-fruit pulp until it

becomes a paste. Don’t add any more

liquid unless you’restruggling to turn

it into a paste. Pour over the top of the

cake and smooth to the edges. Let it

set for15 minutes before serving.

Food & Drink

cBarbaresco

cAlto Adige

cGerman whites

cGreece

cPortugal

cSpanish

Garnacha

cSouth Africa

cChile

For prices, see wine-searcher.com — and

‘GV’ (good value) on jancisrobinson.com

Patricia Niven

OCTOBER 19 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 18/10/2019- 13:56 User:andrew.higton Page Name:WIN19, Part,Page,Edition:WIN, 19, 1