RC 16

At the heart of the enormous boom in wine consumption that has taken place
in the English-speaking world over the last two decades or so is a fascinating,
happy paradox. In the days when wine was exclusively the preserve of a
narrow cultural elite, bought either at auctions or from gentleman wine
merchants in wing collars and bow-ties, to be stored in rambling cellars and
decanted to order by one’s butler, the ordinary drinker didn’t get a look-in.
Wine was considered a highly technical subject, in which anybody without the
necessary ability could only fall flat on his or her face in embarrassment. It
wasn’t just that you needed a refined aesthetic sensibility for the stuff if it
wasn’t to be hopelessly wasted on you. It required an intimate knowledge of
what came from where, and what it was supposed to taste like.

Those were times, however, when wine appreciation essentially meant a

familiarity with the great French classics, with perhaps a smattering of other
wines—like sherry and port. That was what the wine trade dealt in. These
days, wine is bought daily in supermarkets and high-street chains to be
consumed that evening, hardly anybody has a cellar to store it in and most
don’t even possess a decanter. Above all, the wines of literally dozens of
countries are available on our market. When a supermarket offers its
customers a couple of fruity little numbers from Brazil, we scarcely raise an
eyebrow.

It seems, in other words, that the commercial jungle that wine has now
become has not in the slightest deterred people from plunging adventurously
into the thickets in order to taste and see. Consumers are no longer
intimidated by the thought of needing to know their Pouilly-Fume from their
Pouilly-Fuisse, just at the very moment when there is more to know than ever
before. The reason for this new mood of confidence is not hard to find. It is on
every wine label from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United
States: the name of the grape from which the wine is made. At one time that
might have sounded like a fairly technical approach in itself. Why should
native English speakers know what Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay
were? The answer lies in the popularity that wines made from those grape
varieties now enjoy. Consumers effectively recognize them as brand names
and have acquired a basic lexicon of wine that can serve them even when
confronted with those Brazilian upstarts.

In the wine heartlands of France, they are scared to death of that trend—not
because they think their wine isn’t as good as the best from California or
South Australia (what French winemaker will ever admit that?) but because
they don’t traditionally call their wines Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay.
They call them Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou or Corton-Charlemagne, and they
aren’t about to change. Some areas, in the middle of southern France, have
now produced a generation of growers using the varietal names on their
labels and are tempting consumers back to French wine. It will be an uphill
struggle, but there is probably no other way if France is to avoid simply
becoming a speciality source of old-fashioned wines for old fashioned
connoisseurs.

Wine consumption was also given a significant boost in the early 1990s by the
work of Dr. Serge Renaud, who has spent many years investigating the
reasons for the uncannily low incidence of coronary heart disease in the south
of France. One of his major findings is that the fat-derived cholesterol that
builds up in the arteries and can eventually lead to heart trouble, can be
dispersed by the tannins in wine. Tannin is derived from the skins of grapes
and is therefore present in higher levels in red wines because they have to be
infused with their skins to attain the red colour. That news caused a huge
upsurge in red wine consumption in the United States. It has not been
accorded the prominence it deserves in the UK, largely because the medical
profession still sees all alcohol as a menace to the health, and is constantly
calling for it to be made prohibitively expensive. Certainly, the manufacturers
of anticoagulant drugs might have something to lose if we all got the message
that we would do just as well in our hearts by taking half a bottle of red wine
every day!
Based on the Passage, answer the following questions:

1. Which one of the following CANNOT be reasonably attributed to the

labelling strategy followed by wine producers in English-speaking
countries?

a) Consumers buy wines on the basis of their familiarity with a grape variety’s
name

b) Even ordinary customers now have more access to technical knowledge

about wine

c) Consumers are able to appreciate better quality wines

d) Some non-English speaking countries like Brazil indicate grape variety

names on their labels.

2. What according to the author should the French do to avoid becoming

a producer of merely old fashioned wines?

a) Follow the labelling strategy of the English-speaking countries

b) Give their wines English names

c) Introduce fruity wines as Brazil has done.

d) Produce the wines that have become popular in the English-speaking

world.

3. Which one of the following, if true, would provide the most support for
Dr. Renaud’s findings of the effect of tannins?

a) A survey showed that film celebrities based in France have a low incidence
of coronary heart disease.
b) Measurements carried out in southern France showed red wine drinkers
had significantly higher levels of coronary heart incidence than white wine
drinkers did.

c) Data showed a positive association between sales of red wine and the
incidence of coronary heart disease.

d) Long-term surveys in southern France showed that the incidence of

coronary heart disease was significantly lower in red wine drinkers than in
those who did not drink red wine

4. The development which has created fear among winemakers in the

wine heartlands of France is the

a) tendency not to name wines after the grape varieties that are used in the
wines.

b) ‘education’ that consumers have derived from wine labels from English-
speaking countries

c) new generation of local winegrowers who use labels that show names of
grape varieties.

d) ability of consumers to understand a wine’s qualities when confronted with

“Brazilian.