Bordeaux was a good place to start. Most people had heard of Bordeaux. But it was quite expensive. Mostly because so many had heard of it.
But, the region had plenty of 'unknown' villages where wine was cheaper (usually damned in books by a cruel and very faint praise; "Decent quaffing wines only".) Our French base was in one of these villages. So I started out in the wine trade with a deep-seated, rather surly 'outsider' attitude to 'The Greats' and a belief that 'the wines next door to The Greats' were much more interesting ... and if you wanna argue, just come outside and we'll sort this man to man; corkscrews at dawn.
There are so many important things in the world you could launch a crusade about, but I chose this! And stick to it still.
You look at Laithwaites lists over forty years you don't – until recently – see so many of the established 'greats', (sorry, Laithwaites Fine Wine chaps, but you have your passions, I have mine). What you do see are lots of unknown 'discoveries'.
Had I first landed in 'famous Saint-Emilion' rather than 'unknown Castillon' next door everything could have been very different.
Somebody joked about me always wanting - as per the subtitle of a well known TV series - 'To Boldly Go where man had never gone before'.
Fair enough, so we launched 'Laithwaite's Great Wine Trek'. And off I went.
First, up the Dordogne to regions 'next door to next door' like Bergerac and Duras. In the early 70's, not yet become new British colonies they are today, but run-down regions with virtually identical 'terroir' to Bordeaux' and with lovely wines, loads cheaper.
Bergerac - white and red - were my first Big Hits. I remember a Windsor customer ... sports reporter chap, bought nothing else; name of Michael Parkinson. He's traded up since, I guess.
We did Cahors of course. But that was well known. "Ah! The Black Wine of Cahors" wine buffs would cry. Hadn't been black for centuries but wine buff traditions are so very enduring.
The Midi! The Midi was Huge for me. Maybe some Corbieres had been seen in the UK but only merchant-bottled in Bordeaux. Not necessarily all that authentic.
My Bordeaux grower friends all said I must stop asking them for cheaper wine and go to the Midi...and go meet 'Dubernet'.
Jean-Henri Dubernet was an oenologist from Bordeaux who grew tired of pandering to rich Bordeaux Chatelains and struck out for the Wild West of Wine as he called it - in the East. By the Med. Oldest vineyards in France. Devastated. Not so much by the Phylloxera bug wiping out its vineyards as by what happened next; 'industrial wine'.
100+ years ago the vast region of The Midi - largest wine region in the world - was replanted with rubbish vineyards designed to produced as much vaguely red, slightly alcoholic liquid as possible to quench a decade's wine drought.
Fortunes were made. Vines were planted everywhere - swampland, beaches, all over. What had been, since the Phoenicians, wonderful steep hillside vineyards just sort vanished under the sea of what we Brits called 'Plonk', and the French called 'Vin Ordinaire' or, if bolstered by some rich -truly black - wine from Algeria, 'Vin Superieur'. This quenched the thirst of the French working man and his Two-Litres-(average)-a-day habit ... for as long as he lived, that is. Not that long alas.
Dubernet's Crusade was to bring back the great wines of the Midi. He took me all over ... for days at a time. To the few growers and co-operatives he'd persuaded to abandon 'industrial' and go for 'quality'. Cutting production down, hoping people would pay more for a better wine. I would, but I was - incredibly - the only merchant visting. And I was small.
I had to abandon my insistence on 'estate-bottling' because no-one back then bottled. It was all bulk sales in tankers, but we got some of Jean-Henri's followers to send wine to one of the region's two commercial bottlers and made sure they didn't screw it up.
Massive success for us for decades. Many wines. Especially the 'Cuvee Georges Bertrand'. Whole Grape Maceration. Soft juicy red. It something customers had never tasted before. Great guy; Georges. Sadly died - car crash like so many - but son Gerard is now the superstar of the Midi.
My God, but they were fascinating times and wonderful travels.
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