Oz Clarke: the man who sold the New World

I started drinking at the age of three. We were having a picnic on the banks of the river. My brother was drowning in the weir. My father was trying to rescue him. My mother was having hysterics. And there was this bottle of my mum’s damson wine. No one was looking, so I drank it. Delicious.

I’m reworking, reshaping, rewriting, revising my book Oz Clarke on Wine. That’s the first paragraph of the book. It goes on: ‘That put me off drinking till I was 18.’ Well, it was 19, actually. But why is this relevant? Because the world I grew up in was a wine-less world.

What happened during those 16 lost years? Nothing. Other people who end up in the wine industry may have had indulgent parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, with cellars full of wine and a desire to set a little fellow on the right path at an early age.

Not me. My parents didn’t really drink. My grandparents didn’t drink at all. So I didn’t.

And that was completely normal in those days. I read a report saying that during the 1960s only 5% of the British population drank wine. ‘Wine’s not for the likes of us’ could have been a mantra for us Brits. Wine drinking was a class thing. The professionals, the upper classes. Not many others. Labels were in foreign tongues, almost certainly incomprehensible to someone casually stopping by a wine merchant and wondering whether to take the plunge.

Read on for Oz and the New World plus the eight wines that mean the most to him…

Cheap and tasteless

Hardly any of it tasted any good, either. When I got to university and decided that being a wine expert was the surest path to becoming irresistible to the opposite sex (it didn’t work), I used to sign out of breakfast and dinner to raise enough money to buy bottles, and they were sour, raw and fruitless, even if the labels were smart. There were cheaper wines, too, if you had no choice. These might have had vaguely memorable names like Nicolas Vieux Ceps, or Rocamar, Corrida or Hirondelle. There was even a bottle called Othello that went from party to party unopened. Quite a feat in the student world.

But none of the producers of this swill had ever posed the most fundamental of questions – how do we make these concoctions taste nice? Can we make them taste nice? What does ‘taste nice’ mean? Nobody knew. I’m not sure any of them cared. No wonder we didn’t have a popular wine culture in northern Europe.

Ah yes, popular. In the 21st century we can taste top-of-the-range wines from numerous countries around the world. That’s great. But it’s not unprecedented. There have been Golden Ages of wine before. Always at the top end. The reason the New World meant so much to me as I tried to make sense of wine was because this Golden Age has been as thrilling for its common fare as for its masterpieces. The improvement in the common fare has spiralled upwards, just as much as the starry shenanigans at the top have leached downwards. And for that to happen, we needed The New World.

Positive mindset

But what do I mean by ‘New World’? Is it a place? Or is it a state of mind? If it’s a place, various countries and regions demand attention, most of them in the southern hemisphere. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, California, Argentina, Chile. We call these ‘New World’ wine producers. Yes, but why? Above all, because of their state of mind – their ‘New World state of mind’.

What does this mean? It means embracing ‘the art of the possible’. Answering ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’. Meeting the challenge rather than fretting about the problem. If you think a piece of land might be good for a vineyard, plant it – even if no one has laid a hand on that place before. New Zealand’s Marlborough region had never had vines because it was too cold, too stony. Look at it now. If you think a style of wine will work, even if all the experts say no – go ahead and try. That’s what Nyetimber did. Without Nyetimber, where would English sparkling wine be?

A New World state of mind means you are not hidebound by tradition. A couple of generations ago, just about the only tradition Australian grog had was for making head banging ports and sherries. A generation ago, Argentina’s only tradition was for making and drinking vast amounts of raw hooch, flowing from wineries that were some of the most antediluvian in the western hemisphere. New Zealand? A Royal Commission after World War II declared that, in any other wine-producing country, the stuff they were making would be regarded as ‘unfit for human consumption’. It can be strangely liberating if your only tradition is for poisoning each other. You have to wipe the slate clean. You have to look forward, not backwards.

And rules and regulations? Obviously a rule saying ‘don’t poison each other’ is fine, but otherwise – no rules. People will find out what works. People will pay for it if they like it. Those Aussies had a saying. ‘Yer gotta have a go’. New World state of mind.

Consumer appeal

This brings us to the nub of the New World state of mind. The consumer matters. Make something the consumer will enjoy. If it’s something entirely new, such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or Australian Chardonnay – that’s thrilling. But it doesn’t have to be completely new. Chile re-thought what to do with its vineyards full of Cabernet and Carmenère. Argentina re-thought what to do with its endless acres of Malbec.

But don’t just go on making the same old stuff saying, ‘oh, we’ve always done it like that’. One of the most important influences the New World had on Europe’s vineyards was exactly this – as new generations took over vineyards and wineries and cooperatives, and began to ask, ‘what would the consumer like? How can we make it?’.

This all gets tied in with better education in vineyards and wineries, with interchange of ideas and experience from different wine cultures, and modern equipment capable of allowing winemakers to be in control. And it gets bundled up with the whole idea of the democratisation of wine. Labelling wine simply, according to its grape variety, may seem commonplace now, but it was a revolutionary part of the New World state of mind. Keep it simple. Don’t dumb it down, but make it easy for the consumer to understand. Make it nice for the wine drinker to drink. That’s it? Frequently, yes, that’s it.

Back to the future

Movements surge, then pause. Some then surge again, some change emphasis, some even inspire a reaction, a bubbling-up of seeming opposites. Our wine world takes the original New World state of mind for granted nowadays.

And the new generation, bred and brought up on such attitudes, is increasingly adopting a ‘back to the future’ view on wine. Rediscover old vineyards, rediscover old grape varieties, rediscover old ways to make wine.

And that’s tremendously exciting for me. The original ‘New World’ opened up the world of wine for me, allowed me in, welcomed me, helped me prosper. And now an entirely different New World attitude, looking forward and backwards, respecting tradition yet not beholden to it, is reviving my spirits, rekindling my inquisitive nature, and filling my wine life with unexpected, unanticipated delights all over again.

Oz Clarke: eight New World wines that mean the most to me

Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy

Student wine was filthy stuff, scraped from the dregs of whatever tank was cheapest. And here I was as a student actor, in a vast dorm in Madison, Wisconsin, the air so thick with ‘smoke’ I didn’t know if it was more dangerous to inhale or asphyxiate. And I was downing this mug of juicy, fruity, riotously drinkable red wine. Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy. How could cheap wine be this good? Well, the Gallos wanted to get America drinking table wine. Good grapes were so cheap they even used Rochioli’s Russian River Pinot Noir, Barbera, Petite Sirah and other taste bombs for the Hearty Burgundy. It worked. It seemed to me that if America was the land without class, the land of opportunity, the land of the free, it was only right that the first highly drinkable red wine affordable to all, available to all, should be American.

Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay

It’s not often you can say that a single wine launched your career, but I reckon Vat 47 might have launched mine. Doing my first on-screen, live blind wine tasting for BBC Food & Drink, I was faced with this glowing, golden liquid, coiling lazily around the glass. Exotic, tropical, sensual. Now, this was the 1980s. Wines didn’t look and taste like that. Except one. Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay from Australia’s Hunter Valley. Aussie Chardonnay was pretty much unknown then in the UK. The team were certain this would catch me out. But I’d tasted this one. I’d even visited the vineyard! Go with your instincts. ‘Vat 47 Chardonnay,’ I said. And it was.

Montana Sauvignon Blanc

How often in a wine taster’s life do you find a wine that you know is completely different to anything that existed before, and that will change the world of wine forever? Well, I found one on 1 February 1984, on the 17th floor of New Zealand House in London, third wine along from the left. Montana Sauvignon Blanc was introducing itself to the world. A wine so sharp and incisive it should cut your tongue, but it didn’t. A wine so full of gooseberry, lime and apricot fruit it demanded you just drink it for sheer delight. White wine was never like that. Until Montana Sauvignon Blanc came along.

Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz

The wine that taught a whole nation to love red wine. When I got going in wine, reds were pretty hard work. And then along came Bin 28, piled high in every Oddbins in the land. This was a wine so ripe and spicy it virtually forced the cork out of the bottle by the sheer exuberance of its personality, showering your tongue with blackcurrants, black plums and blackberries, all so ripe the juice was oozing through their skins. And add to that enough vanilla, liquorice, chocolate and spice to virtually choke you with excitement. A nation swooned. Thank you, Bin 28, for teaching us Brits to love red.

Errazuriz Wild Ferment Chardonnay

South America’s reputation was never for whites. Certainly not Chile’s. Cabernet and Merlot and Carmenère were the calling cards; ripe and lush, bursting with fruit, ripened by the relentless sun. And then I tasted Wild Ferment Chardonnay. From Casablanca – down near the icy Pacific Ocean. Thought of as too cold for grapes. Clearly not. At the end of the last century, most New World Chardonnays were lush and tropical. This was oatmealy, elegant, with a crème fraîche savoury softness that spoke of Meursault. Chile’s brilliant cool-climate potential was just raising its head and asking to be noticed.

Newton Cabernet Sauvignon

I spent a lot of time in California in the 1980s and ’90s. It was a fantastic time to be there – a rollercoaster era as the Golden West swung to and fro, trying to work out what it could do best. But through all this I needed an anchor, and an English couple, Peter and Su Hua Newton, provided it, consistently proving that mountain-grown Cabernet and Merlot could be world class. Chardonnay, too, and even Sauvignon Gris if they were in a contemplative mood. I still open bottles of 1990 Cabernet and Merlot at blind tastings. St-Julien, the experts say. Or Pauillac.

Eben Sadie’s Old Vine Series

If the New World needs a New Age philosopher, they won’t find a better one, a more persuasive one, than South Africa’s Eben Sadie. The most exciting movement – no, crusade – in the New World now is to find and preserve what is left of their original vineyard cultures. Sadie says: ‘I went to Europe to find old vines, but now I know I have them all here. It’s important to bottle the truth, however imperfect.’ Skurfberg, Pofadder, Mev. Kirsten, Skerpioen, Treinspoor, ’T Voetpad, Kokerboom – any of these will offer you a thrilling insight into where the New World is headed next.

Nyetimber

Nyetimber’s English, isn’t it? Since when did England classify as a New World wine country? Well, before Nyetimber arrived, no one in England had ever believed we could excel at making wine, be world-beaters, possibly be the best there was. It took a couple of uncompromising Chicagoans to lift England up by the scruff of the neck and say: where’s your ambition? Where’s your confidence in yourselves? We didn’t come 5,000 miles to be second best… I still remember the shock and the thrill of tasting the 1992 and 1993 Nyetimbers. Thank you, Stuart and Sandy Moss.

Oz Clarke on Wine has just been published by Académie du Vin Library (£30)

You may also like

Expert’s choice: New World sparkling wines

30 great New World buys under £30

Top 10 New World sweet wines