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Millions upon millions of words have been written about wine. They range from pretentious rubbish to simple common sense. The proportion of high-flown tosh rises in direct relation to the cost of the wine. In print, many writers are guilty of penning quite absurd descriptions of the most precious fluid God gave man. In the flesh some sommeliers are also wont to spout great degrees of nonsense.
So, when asked for a short exposition of how to enjoy wine, I propose the following, written by a Frenchman who nevertheless lived well over half his life in England where he was a huge influence upon the enjoyment of food and wine.
The Wine Connoisseur
The Wine Connoisseur is one who knows good wine from bad and who appreciates the distinctive merits of different wines.
The Wine Connoisseur drinks wine in moderation, but regularly and appreciatively. It is excess — not habit — which blunts appreciation.
A little wine every day costs very little money and is the safest, as well as the pleasantest, tonic for body and mind alike. But wine, whatever its name, its age or its cost, must be honest if it is to be good and to do good.
How can you tell good wine from bad; how can you become a Wine Connoisseur?
By using your senses and your common sense. By looking at it, smelling it and tasting it with critical eyes, nose and palate before committing it to your veins and your brain.
Look at your wine critically: it must be not only clear but brilliant, be it ruby or amber, young or old, cheap or dear. If it be dull or thick, reject it; if bright, let it go before the tribunal of your nose.
Smell your wine critically: it must be clean-smelling. If you can detect the slightest mouldy, foul smell, or some unnatural, artificial scent, however, faint, leave it alone. If its discreet aroma is pleasant, remain a while with bowed head over your glass; try to remember the occasion when you last met the same charming 'bouquet' and what was the name of the wine.
Then you may send your wine to the next court where your palate awaits it.
Taste your wine critically: it must be clean and pleasant. If you detect any unsavoury, sour or merely suspicious taste, spit it out as you would a bad oyster or a piece of tainted meat. But if the wreath of tiny taste-buds of your tongue and palate receive your wine joyfully, pause but one instant, again to search your memory for the name and vintage of the wine you are drinking, and then swallow it gratefully.
From André Simon’s, “A Wine Primer”, 1940
As if to prove his point that wine in moderation was healthful to both mind and body, André Simon lived to be 93. Born in 1877 he was sent to England to learn English when he was 17. There he met and in 1900 married Edith Symons. He entered the wine trade by becoming the London agent for the champagne house of Pommery & Greno. A collector of fine books, his talent for writing soon emerged with The History of the Champagne Trade in England published in installments in the Wine Trade Review.
World War I took him back to France for military service but at the end of hostilities he was soon back in London, selling Champagne. His association with Pommery ended in 1931, by which time he was a well established figure of the UK wine trade.
With friends he founded the Wine Trade Club in 1908 and, in 1933, with publisher A.J.A. Symons the Wine & Food Society. André Simon was President and Editor of the Society journal, Wine and Food, whilst Symons handled business and financial affairs. The Society held its first banquet at the Savoy Hotel, London in January 1934. On 11 December 1934, Simon founded in New York a branch of what would become the International Wine & Food Society, with branches across the United States, Australia and South Africa soon to follow. Symons died of a brain haemorrhage in 1941, at which point André Simon took over control of the Society. He only gave up editing and publishing Wine and Food in 1962 (at the age of 85), when Condé Nast Magazine Publishers acquired it. The first edition under their control was in Spring 1963, and the editor a former “Vogue” magazine copywriter named Hugh Johnson.
André Simon died in 1970. He believed that "a man dies too young if he leaves any wine in his cellar"; and there were only two magnums of claret remaining in his personal cellar when he passed away. Having seen the grand old man at wine and food functions during the 1960s and in awe of his work, I felt his passing was really the end of an era. At that time, not far from my offices near Great Portland Street was a very fine but unpretentious restaurant called Lacey’s run by top chef Bill Lacey and his famous food writer wife Margaret Costa. They organised a wake (a celebration of the life) for André Simon, which went on for several days and nights. I think it possible that everybody who was anybody in the trade attended at one hour or another to say God Speed to the great man.
A proviso in Simon’s will left a sufficient quantity of 1945 Château Latour to celebrate what would be his centenary in 1977, when 400 guests gathered at the Savoy to drink to his memory. I cannot think of a better way to be remembered. Except perhaps by this tribute he wrote…
"Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized."
Pictured: well into his eighties, André Simon with his protégé, the young Hugh Johnson, who became a world famous writer and authority on both wine and gardening.
