fine wine
I've just finished filming another series of The Restaurant, which by my count brings us to our ninth series. I'm not breaking any contractual confidences when I tell you that in this series Tom Doorley and I have fared better than usual in guessing what wines we've been offered. The producers ask us to identify which of the two
‘The peculiarities of Irish duties and excise on
wines means that
in the case of the €20 wine, you’re actually paying
more than twice as much for the wine in the bottle
as you are for the €10 bottle’
wines on offer costs less than €10 and which one costs less than €20. That’s the easy part, and most of the time we get that right – although not always. There are times when the mystery chef picks a wine for €10 and one for €13. Distinguishing between two wines like this becomes very hard, and the reason is that there isn't always a direct relationship between price and quality. There’s usually a noticeable difference between
wines of €10 and €20, because the peculiarities of Irish duties and excise on wines means that in the case of the €20 wine, you're actually paying more than twice
as much for the wine in the bottle as you are for the €10 bottle. It works like this, first you add a fixed duty of about €2 per bottle to the cost of the wine landed in Ireland, then you add 21pc VAT to that. In effect you pay tax on tax. So on a €10 retail sale there’s 21pc VAT, which is €1.74. That leaves the retailer with €8.26. If he makes a standard 33pc mark-up, then the wine cost him €6.20. Take away the €2 duty and the wine land- ed in Ireland at €4.20. If we do exactly the same calculation on a €20 bottle,
we end up with a landed cost of €10.39, almost two and a half times as much as with the €10 bottle. Even allow- ing for no direct relationship between price and quality, you can see that in the €20 case, you end up paying less of a percentage of tax and more on the wine.
Global grape So, deciding which is the more expensive wine is the easiest task. Next we try to work out what wine we are drinking. Now this is difficult, because even if you recognise a Cabernet Sauvignon grape, it could be from any one of maybe 20 countries. This is true for many of the great French grapes – Chardonnay, Merlot, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Thirty years ago these grapes were the province of the French, and each grape was grown in a particular part of France. If you recognised the grape, you knew where it came from – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were only grown in Burgundy, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in Bordeaux, Syrah in the Rhône Valley and Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire Valley. Today all these grapes are global, and lesser-known varieties like Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris, Viognier, Marsanne and Grenache are also being planted all over the world. The days when a grape variety was tied to single region are long gone.
Spring 2011 Irish Director 79
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