Archive dive in five: Decanter January 1976

Decanter January 1976 issue — (Image credit: Decanter)

For the first of a new series, delving into our bound archives to see what was making the headlines from a particular month over the past 50 years, it seems appropriate to wend our way back to January 1976, the fifth issue of Decanter magazine.

Bunches of black and white grapes with (now) vintage stemware adorn the yellow cover, with headlines for ‘Italian wines – the great names for good value’ and ‘What’s best in 1970 clarets’.

The following are five nods to nostalgia that we enjoyed inside Decanter‘s January 1976 issue.

Archive dive in five

1: From the advertising annals

Costing 40p, this issue has just 54 pages, and the ad on the inside back cover shouts that ‘Suddenly! Italian wines are wonderful!’ It claims that consumption of Italian wine has increased ten fold since 1970, and recommends pairing Orvieto with hors d’ouvres [sic] and Bardolino with light lunches.

2: Lead feature

‘Have an Italian for dinner!’ recommends the main feature. Effusive writer Hugh McKay says Lambrusco is having ‘remarkable success all over the country’, Valpolicella is ‘becoming the most popular wine in Britain’, Vernaccia di San Gimignano ‘compares with the best white wines on earth’ and ‘no wine is superior to Barolo’.

3: Bordeaux (of course!)

In his Bordeaux 1970 article, Clive Coates MW states that after 1945 and 1961, 1970 is ‘probably the best vintage since the war’, rating it 8.5/10. The wine auction column reported on recent 12-bottle case prices of top 1970 clarets, including Haut-Brion (£55), Latour (£66) and Petrus (£86). Ducru-Beaucaillou and Cos d’Estournel were going for £29 a case, with ‘Talbot 1970 fetching a very modest £20’.

4: In the mail

In response to columnist Michael Broadbent MW’s article on tasting in a previous issue, a letter to the editor from Ian Douglas of Brighton suggests Decanter should produce ‘a dozen 35mm Kodak slides’ as references for wine colour. Broadbent replies that he would ‘rise to the challenge’.

5: Past prices

In a segment on wine duty, a diagram compares a £1 and a £2 bottle, showing that paying a little bit more ensured a better quality wine. ‘And you don’t have to pay as much as £2,’ we assured readers. ‘If you generally pay around £1.20 you should get a noticeably better quality wine by paying 30p more.’

Is there an issue over the past 50 years you’d like us to look back on? Drop us a line at editor@decanter.com

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Tina Gellie has worked for Decanter since 2008 and is the brand's Content Editor as well as Regional Editor for the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. An awarded wine writer and editor, she also won several scholarships on the way to getting her WSET Diploma, and is a freeman of The Worshipful Company of Distillers. She has worked in wine publishing since 2003, including as Deputy Editor and Acting Editor of Wine International. Before her wine career she was a newspaper journalist for broadsheets in London and Australia.