Malcolm Jolley: In search of the ordinary (wine)

In the fine dining restaurants in Toronto, a standard wine mark up is around two and a half times, or 250%. So, a bottle of wine that cost the house $30 might appear on its list at $75 (or maybe rounded up to $80), and the one listed for $100 would likely have cost $40. This isn’t chicanery; it’s how restaurants are able to make money, pay their staff and keep the lights on.

I want a world where there are fancy restaurants, especially small ones that can’t compete on economies of scale. If this is the economic model that keeps them open, I am okay with that, since going out for a posh meal is an occasional treat. What I am not okay with is the constant premiumization of the wine trade.

When I am at home, or at the pub, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to order a decent bottle of wine for under $50 ($10 a glass), or pick up a bottle off the shelf for $15 to $20. And for the last two years or so this has become increasingly difficult. I have noticed more than a few wines that were $20 a few years ago settle at around $24 retail, an inflation of 20%.

I don’t drink wine every day, but I do want access to good ordinary every day wine.

When the venerable London wine traders Berry Brothers and Rudd launched their ‘Good Ordinary Claret’ label of Bordeaux red wine in the 1970s, Christopher Berry Green, the Managing Director of the firm at the time, was told by a marketing expert that no one would every buy a bottle of wine advertised as ‘ordinary’. Au contraire, it quickly became one of their most popular brands.

Berry Green had come up with the name by reading through 19th century BB&R catalogues, where Claret (which a certain kind of Englishman or woman still calls red Bordeaux) was sold by the three levels: ordinary, good or better. The combination of good and ordinary still appeals to consumers. To paraphrase Berry Green, who is quoted on the BB&R website, the name evokes British understatement and an assurance that at least the wine won’t be disappointing.

For all my complaining, I do see some light at the end of the tunnel, and I don’t think it’s a train. Every day I receive easily a dozen wine offers from local importers and producers, to whom I subscribe simply to see what’s out in the marketplace. It can be a rather depressing business reading about bottles of wine that I am sure are delicious, but are priced way out of my ready-to-drink rack in the cellar. If a restaurant buys them, they’ll be listed at $100 or more.

Starting in the summer, I noticed an increase in offers of mixed cases. This is how one sells expensive bottles, that otherwise won’t move. A mixed case that features four bottles each of $50, $30, and $20 will average out at $33 a bottle. In the past few weeks I see more offers for wines at around $25, so maybe the market is catching-up with my wishes.

I see this as well at the Liquor Control Board Ontario retail outlet that I regularly shop at. I shop mostly in the “Vintages” section, which features limited quantities of wines that come through the provincial near monopoly every week or two. A year ago, it was hard to find anything, for instance, in the Burgundy section for under $30. Lately the LCBO has brought in a number of reasonably priced (under $25) whites from the Mâcon in the south of the region.

If there’s good news about the Canadian economy lately, I haven’t heard it. As mortgages that were set five years ago at low continue to roll over into high ones, the amount of personal debt and payments to the bank continue to rise. The amount of discretionary income that households can a lot to the pleasures in life, like a good bottle of wine, or night out at a good restaurant is shrinking as exponentially as the anxiety of those in the wine trade and hospitality businesses rise.

When I was in Paris earlier this year for a few days, there was a mini-supermarket on the same street of my hotel. There were two big shelves of wine that offered no less than four affordable Mâconais or equivalent whites, as well as a number of $20 or so wines from the Loire or Languedoc. When I crossed the Channel over to the UK, the equivalent supermarkets in England offered more less the same selection, but complemented by wines from the rest of Europe and beyond.

In the UK, the supermarkets also featured their own “white label” wines, with which they competed directly with their rivals. Like the assurance of Berry Brothers and Rudd’s promise ‘of Good Ordinary’, the assurance of the supermarkets’ brand towards relatively exotic and interesting affordable wines, like white Verdejo from Rueda in Galicia in the Northwest of Spain, or red Madiran from Gascony in Southwestern France.

The Madiran appellation is something of a wino secret. It must be made with at least 60 percent of the grape Tannat, which is unsurprisingly tannic. Made gently, blended with Cabernet Franc or Sauvignon, after a few years a good ordinary Madiran can make an excellent contest against a good ordinary black fruited Claret. Easy enough drinking, but with a bit of tension and structure, which hints at some seriousness behind affable first impressions.

Andrew Jefford writes that Madiran “perfectly echoes autumn, mimicking the aromatic messiness and textural litter of the natural world a everything sets about falling and decaying…” As the nights get longer and cooler, I have been enjoying the 2020 Château Peyros Héritage Madiran lately, which I would like to think has at least slowed down some mental and spiritual decay.

Peyros exports widely to Canadian markets, and their every day Héritage red, which is $17.95 right now in Ontario, pairs very well with good ordinary food, like the top sirloin I grilled on charcoal Sunday evening. You can’t filet mignon every day, and even if you could, you wouldn’t because to appreciate the special you need the regular, the good, and the ordinary.