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Tim Atkin MW: Farewell to Fiona Beckett

Fiona’s arrival at The Guardian coincided with my departure from The Observer. Sliding doors and all that. The paper literally reduced my column to a single column and I didn’t want to be someone who just penned weekly wine recommendations. I don’t regret my decision for a nanosecond. Most newspaper wine columns pay their authors less than they did then; the space given to wine has continued to shrink.

In her final piece for the paper, Fiona talked about what had changed since 2010. Some of the things she chose to highlight surprised me. She says that she prefers “lighter, fresher wines” more than she did when she started. No quarrels there. I think we all do, although I was never a fan of high-alcohol fruit bombs. She also wrote about the rise and rise of rosé. Again, fair enough, although too many of these wines taste as if they’ve been sourced from the same gigantic vat, especially in Provence.

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Greek wines got a mention too. It is indeed remarkable that Aldi stocks an Assyrtiko – the country’s most distinctive grape alongside red Xinomavro – but I’m not convinced that Greece has entered the mainstream just yet. It’s still waiting for the “great leap forwards”, to quote the English musician and political activist, Billy Bragg.

The bits that struck me as wide of the mark were closer to home. The first was Fiona’s extravagant praise for the English wine industry, which is making “great bottles… all over the country”. I’ve always felt that our home-grown wines get an easy ride from journalists, arguably encouraged by editors who like nothing better than stories about us Brits sticking it to the French. Yes, English wines are a lot better than they were when I started writing about booze in 1985, but the industry remains pretty small at 4,209ha – less than Saint Émilion, remember. Some of the best bubblies and a handful of still wines are indeed very good, but they rarely strike me as world class. Sorry. The prices are often too high, the quality mixed, particularly in wet vintages.

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Natural wine

For Fiona, the most striking development of the last 14 years has been “the growth in popularity of natural wines”, although she concedes that this has mostly been in wine bars and independents. Once again, I would politely disagree. Natural wine has always struck me as a sideshow, or possibly even a cul de sac. There is no widely agreed definition of what constitutes a natural wine – orange and amber wines are often different things – and too many of the bottles that are described as such suffer from basic winemaking faults: oxidation, mousiness, high volatile acidity and/or Brettanomyces. Here, too, there’s a reluctance on the part of the Fourth Estate to point out that the emperor is starkers. People are fearful of being dismissed as old farts.

So what does this old fart think has changed over the last 14 years, when I penned my last column for The Observer? Some of the changes are regrettable. The diversity of the UK wine scene is not what it was, most notably in the high street, but also in supermarkets. The independent scene is a lot better, of course, but it too is hamstrung by Brexit, high duty rates, red tape and the increasing tendency of producers to send their wines elsewhere. London is no longer the uncontested centre of the wine world.

But let’s be more positive. For me, the biggest shift has occurred in the average quality of what we drink. More regions are crafting great stuff than ever before; bad bottles are way less prevalent. This has changed the way we perceive ‘fine’ wine in particular. Climate change has made it possible to produce wines more consistently in once-marginal areas – small mercies and all that – but everywhere you look there’s greater focus on vineyards and expressions of place. High duty rates notwithstanding, we have all benefited from that.

I’ve been lucky enough to share some good bottleswith Fiona over the years. I wish her well on her travels.

She’s left The Guardian a better place.

• Tim Atkin MW
• Fiona Beckett
• wine column