There is a certain amount of hullaballo when it come to the insatiable appetite of the Chinese wine drinker.

But amid all the opportunity in the fastest growing market in the world comes a stark warning about the threat of fake wine.

The founder of Hong Kong’s Independent Wine Centre went public this week with his fears of the growing threat of fake wine in the Chinese market.

According to a report in The Independent:

Tam has been quoted in the local press as saying friends of his had been offered as much as HK$10,000 (936 euros) for an empty bottle of Chateau Lafite 1982.

Apparently the bottles are then filled with ordinary wine and offered on the market for a knockdown HK$40,000 (3,700 euros) – down from the average price of HK$100,000 (9,400 euros) going for that vintage.

We have to act fast.

All wine duties were abolished in Hong Kong in 2008, and as a consequence the city has become the world’s largest market for the auction of fine wines – bigger even than New York and London.

This is not a new Hong Kong phenomenon. In 2001, thirty bottles of 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild were found to contain wine that retailed for 15 euros a bottle.

Of course, the UK has it’s own fake wine scam. Go to any supermarket in the land and you’ll see hundreds of branded products claiming to be wine when in fact they are filled with a machine made sugary grape juice concoction.

It’s wine Jim but not as we know it.

Nigel Pargetter died on Sunday night after falling from the roof of Lower Loxley Hall in the village of Ambridge, Borsetshire.

Hoisted by his own petard

Nigel was the ‘go-to’ man in the village on all matters relating to fine wine. A keen enthusiast of Bordeaux and Burgundy, Nigel also produced wine from his own vines at Lower Loxley. Wineoftheweek had long been an admirer of Nigel’s indefatigable optimism and regarded him as one of the key men in English regional wine.

Although his death was initially presumed to be an accident, evidence now suggests that foul play may have been involved.  The internet is awash with accusations that Vannessa Whitburn (a senior BBC radio editor) murdered Mr Pargetter in a callous act of ratings chasing vandalism.

No one has seen or heard from Whitburn since a bizarre interview with the Today program on the morning after Nigel’s fall. In the interview Whitburn confirmed that Mr Pargetter was indeed dead – this before either the police or Nigel’s family had provided any official announcement.

Experts have been quick to point out that Whitburn’s interview displayed all the characteristics of a sociopathic killer – desire for attention, superiority gained by goading of the public, an inability to admit any wrongdoing.

Whatever the truth of the matter, our thoughts go out to Nigel’s wife Elizabeth, their two children and to David Archer who was on the roof with Nigel at the time of his fall.

Nigel’s death is a symbolic loss to the world of English wine and a personal loss felt by so many who were glad to have known him. He was indeed “a thoroughly nice bloke”.

“An entrepreneur claims to have invented a machine that turns a cheap bottle of plonk into a vintage-tasting wine in a matter of minutes.
 
Inventor Casey Jones says the £350 gadget uses ultrasound technology to recreate the effects

Even a bottle of paintstripper whisky can taste like an 8-year-aged single malt

 of decades of ageing by colliding alcohol molecules inside the bottle. The Ultrasonic Wine Ager, which looks like an ordinary ice bucket, takes 30 minutes to work and has already been given the thumbs up by an English winemaker. 

Mr Jones, 53, said: “This machine can take your run-of-the-mill £3.99 bottle of plonk and turn it into a finest bottle of vintage tasting like it costs hundreds.”It works on any alcohol that tastes better aged, even a bottle of paintstripper whisky can taste like an 8-year-aged single malt.

“The look and bouquet of the drink is improved and because of the chemical changes, the alcohol is easier to absorb by the kidneys and therefore, hangovers are virtually eliminated.

“I have even tried it with orange juice after I saw a similar device being used in the US. It didn’t just make the juice taste fresher, it made it look brighter too.”

He added: “I see thousands of inventions every year and there are a lot of crazy ones, but in every ton of coal there is a diamond.

“Of all the inventions I deal with, this one has amazed me the most in the effects it has on alcohol.”

Andre Jones, no relation, a winemaker who produces 40,000 bottles-a-year at his family-owned Buzzard Valley Vineyard, near Tamworth, Staffs, said he was impressed by the gadget. He said: “Casey took one of our bottles and brought it back for us to try after it had been in the machine. I was amazed, it had definitely aged.

“Obviously it can’t change the grape variety used, but it does mean a relatively poor variety can be made to taste a lot higher market. I would like to see it used on some of the Mediterranean varieties like a Rioja or a Shiraz. This could definitely have some applications for those restaurants who are buying wine for £10,000 a case.

“Technically I suppose you could buy a good wine at two or three years old and age it so it tastes like a 20-year-old vintage. Wine is at it’s best five or so years after it’s made, so this could help homebrewers taste aged wine more easily.”

However, he warned restaurants and bars against trying to pass off a cheaper bottle of wine as a more expensive one just because it had been through the machine.

“You would have to tell customers it wasn’t quite the real thing,” he said.”

The Wine Society (TWS) is in equal parts inspiring and frustrating. Unique in the mail order landscape, the Society is a co-operative that doesn’t pursue the profit principle. It exists in stark contrast to the behemoth that is Direct Wines and the UK consumer is all the better for it.

I’ll declare my association right from the start. I worked for The Wine Society a couple of years back, project managing their move to a new web platform. They are located in the Hertfordshire ghetto of Stevenage (Lewis Hamilton grew up here, learning to drive fast to enable a quick exit), the working culture is akin to that of a state run company in a command economy. However, there is something safe and reassuring about the business and my sixth month contract ended up resulting in a two year stay.

The Business is run by a Committee of elected members but, as in any self preserving “democracy”, the election rules are designed to protect the status quo so don’t imagine that by becoming a member you’ll get a shot at the board.

But the wine is simply fantastic, at every level. The buyers have a greater degree of freedom than in any other business ofcomparable size or greater. Couple that with the fact that they are not just looking to make a quick buck and you get a merchant that fosters great relationships with growers (not seeking to beat them into submission on price) and delivers interesting and often challenging wine to its customers.

The best way to get the most out of TWS, is to join the “Wine Without Fuss” subscription scheme. Basically,

you set up a direct debit and you receive a regular supply of wine. You choose the case style, price points and the months you want it delivered. It’s a far more flexible scheme than those run by Laithwaites (buying from Laithwaites, you can’t help think you’re buying from a business model than a wine merchant) and often, the cases contain the most interesting wines that the Society gets its hands on – small parcels, one off buys etc.

TWS has also made great strides in the accessibility of their Fine Wine range with Shaun Kiernan doing a great job in giving customers really interesting offer such as the recent Ridge Wines mixed case.

TWS is a heritage brand and as such you are buying into a part of a British stuffiness that I usually recoil from. TWS certainly has its faults. It’s still disappointing that they don’t embrace community more than they do – you get no sense of being part of a Society, they have an old fashioned approach that dictates that the Brand is the endorsement and that the customer is subservient.

As a result they refuse to unleash the web as a communication tool in the same way that, for instance, Berry Brothers has done. However, I’m confident that they’ll get there in the end and that one day they can find a way to unleash the more progressive instinct that certainly exists amongst the rank and file.

To join the Society you have to fork out £40 or a lifetime membership (one off cost).  There’s some nonsense when joining about your application being approved by a committee (it isn’t- the company does not do any checks on you, it’s just a brand construct to create the concept of exclusivity) so you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks until your Share Number and members pack is issued.

To get a taste of the offers the Society is currently pushing take a look here.