Who you calling a Zork?

Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games. Set in a sprawling underground labyrinth the user controlled a nameless adventurer whose goal was to find treasures hidden in caves.

Zork is also the name of a resealable top for sparkling wines and Tesco have just announced that they will be adopting the closure on four of their own label fizzes – Sparkling Mateus Brut Rosé; Tesco 1531 Blanquette de Limoux; Dino Durello Spumante; and Tesco Finest Angas Brut Rosé.

Dan Jago, Tesco’s beer wines and spirits category director expressed the development through the medium of corporate b*llsh*t:

“This is great news for customers who are just looking to enjoy the odd glass of sparkling wine. The bottle can now be perfectly re-sealed and we believe the innovation will introduce more people to sparkling wine.

“The Zork top is not only safe and easy to use but also retains the satisfying pop, as well as the sense of celebration and ceremony associated with opening a bottle of sparkling wine.”

Mr Jago forgets to mention that the Sparkling Mateus Brut  Rosé is undrinkable.

He is also fails to mention whether he ever reached the status of Dungeon Master in the original Zork computer game.

"What? What? What? You want some? Eh? Yeah, yeah, and yer mates..."

Yet another example of gitmo supermarket behaviour reached WineOfTheWeek at the weekend with the news that a father who went shopping with his daughter was unable to buy a bottle of wine because his eight year old child did not have ID.

Despite explaining his daughter was only eight, Navid Asadi claims that Tesco staff still refused to sell him the alcohol.

‘I just can’t believe it. I totally understand if you are 18 and with a group of kids but my daughter is eight.” said Mr Asadi

‘I was buying potatoes, bananas, ham, regular shopping, and had a bottle of wine and they would not serve it to me.

They didn’t serve me so I left the whole shopping and walked out.’ ‘What did they want me to do? Let her stand outside on her own because I want to buy a bottle of wine?’ A spokesman for the supermarket said: ‘Tesco is unable to confirm this incident occurred. ‘We are looking into it with the store as a matter of urgency.’

Mr Asadi is from Essex.

It’s the Japanese who blazed a trail for selling anything and everything from vending machines, but the Americans are catching up.

Pennsylvania has gone hi-tech to keep it’s tough controls on selling alcohol, whilst allowing non state-owned supermarkets to sell it for the first time.

To get hold of your favorite tipple you need to swipe your driving license, your payment card, and then blow into a breathalyser before the door will open and allow you to grab your prize.

All of this is monitored by CCTV to make sure you’re not fiddling the system with someone else’s driving license or blowing into the machine with a portable hair drier.

The system is currently on trial as they decide if it prevents abuse as well as if the customers are willing to jump through these hoops for their wine.

Rumours that Tesco is going to ask customers to blow on the cashiers before being allowed to buy alcohol have been denied.

Yes, the World Cup kicks off today and wine retailers across the land are surely trying to find a way to drive sales through any kind of footballing link they can think of. Right? Actually no.

Take a cursory look across the online landscape and you’ll see no mention of the World Cup at Majestic, Oddbins, Laithwaites or Nicolas. Even Naked Wines has nothing to say on the matter, and they are owned by a South African boy – come on Rowan, where’s the love?

The problem is, packaged sporting wine deals rarely sell. The clever direct marketers sit around and plug the numbers in to their very clever counting machines and inevitably conclude that it’s easier to sell coals to Newcastle. When it comes to football, it’s all about the cheap beer I’m afraid.

We gave huge kudos to Berry Bros for their simply brilliant Fantasy Wine World Cup so let’s not blow smoke up their proverbials yet again..

…instead it’s left to he august Wine Society to invite us to ‘Raise a glass to this year’s football World Cup hosts’ through a  characteristically straight ‘Discover South Africa case‘.

Such a paltry offering is dwarfed by Tesco who have dedicated a whole section on their website to South African World Cup Fever. There’s a competition, a full selection of South African wines,  a map of key vineyards and some info on history and climate. Reithian values from Tesco then.

And finally amongst the big boys is Marks and Spencer who, like Tesco, have gone down the highly unimaginative “25% off all South African Wines” route. Yawn.

Can I fess up? I’ve only written this post so that I can shoehorn the John Barnes Rap into this blog. Please forgive me and enjoy the greatest footballing contribution to music since Waddle and Hoddle.

It is your duty to drink England dry

It’s English Wine Week again and it seems that this year the English wine industry is walking with a confident swagger. According to official figures released by English Wine Producers (the trade body) the number of bottles produced by English wineries jumped from 1.34 million in 2008 to 3.17 million in 2009.

However serial miserabilist Malcolm Gluck begs to differ. A persistent naysayer when it comes to English Wine, Gluck has this view:

“It is overpriced and under-exciting. The idea England ever becomes a major wine producing area is pure fantasy.”

Of course, no one in the industry beleives that England will become a wine superpower but this doesn’t stop Gluck rubbishing a claim that doesn’t exist.

Gluck  is a thoroughly depressing character. A self styled consumer champion his “The Great Wine Swindle” book is a paean to negativity and self righteousness.

English Wine is a niche pursuit and, yes, the cost of production does make it expensive. Quality is also variable but at it’s best it can also be very rewarding and quality – witness the recent award winners at the International Wine Challenge – is improving all the time.

While specialist Merchants like The Wine Society have long championed the cause of English Wine, we are now seeing supermarkets (Tesco, Booths and Waitrose) and restaurants (The Ivy) getting in the act and including English Wine on their lists.

Let’s get behind our boys. For England. For Wine. For Glory!!!

Wineoftheweek only recommends what we have drunk so here’s a small selection to of ‘tried and enjoyed’ English Vineyards:

Nyetimber

Chapel Down

Camel Valley

Three Choirs

'What do you mean you won't serve me? I'm 900 years old!!'

Another week passes and another Supermarket refuses to let shoppers buy wine. This time it was a 33 year old Cambridgeshire man denied by Tesco because he had no I.D.

Sometimes life is beyond satire but sometimes we need the absurd to highlight, well, the absurd.

Dear Readers, I hand you over to Roy Turse of the magnificent The Spoof for a different way of looking at things:

50 Year-Old Man Refused Wine In Tesco’s – Because He Had No Idea

A man of fifty was stopped from buying a bottle of wine in Tesco’s because he admitted to staff that he had no idea what he was buying. He said that he usually drank lager, but had decided on a whim to try wine.

Staff at the Birmingham store first became suspicious when the man spent twenty minutes comparing the labels on the backs of the bottles. The store manager said “People who know what they are doing usually go for the special offers – it was obvious he was a novice.”

The man was challenged when he attempted to pay for his chosen bottle, a £16.99 Rioja. “I was approached by the manager who said I looked below the minimum knowledge level and said he couldn’t serve me if I had no idea. I tried to tell him I knew what I was doing, but he insisted that I should leave without the bottle.”

The store manager later said that although the man appeared to be in his fifties, the store had a policy of challenging anyone who looked a bit confused in case they had no idea. “In this case, the shopper had chosen a wholly inappropriate wine. He should have realised that a £4.99 generic Tempranillo would be perfectly good enough for someone with such a limited palate.”

The man was upset by the store’s decision, but has resolved to stay away from wine in future. “I was not really sure if I’d like a boisterous but silky red, packed with fruit and giving hints of raspberry and warm chocolate, anyway.”

Tesco’s has confirmed that their policy on controlling access to the more expensive wines will continue. “A loyalty card from any of the main off-licences or a subscription to a wine magazine will do. But don’t try to buy wine if you have no idea. You won’t even be served if we think you are a wine drinker but you are buying it for someone else who has no idea.”

Calling all Ad Agencies and Google AdWords specialists. Tesco is looking for some advice on how to turn AdWords campaigns off.

The problem was identified last week when Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco’s CEO) announced that the supermarket’s customers are extremely concerned about the the impact of cheap alcohol on society.

Sir Terry was quick to announce that Tesco listens to its customers, and has decided to act by leading the campaign for price reforms. However, due to an apparent technical glitch, Leahy has been unable to adjust his Google advertising program. Top keywords relating to alcohol are still displaying discounts, promotions and extra Clubcard points and it must be causing him some embarrassment.

If you can solve the problems below then please contact Tesco directly:

Enter the search term ‘wine’ in Google:

Enter the search term ‘lager’:

Enter search term ‘ale’:

I’m really at a loss with this one.

Two pensioners from Essex were left stunned when they were asked to show photo identification to buy a bottle of wine.

Jennifer Rogers went to her local One Stop convenience store with a 70-year-old friend.But a staff member refused the sale saying she needed photographic identification to prove her age.

A spokesperson for the store said: “We take the sale of alcohol to underage people extremely seriously.

The rest of the world said: “Oh for f***’s sake!”.

Mind you, take a look at how much wine she pours in the glass. If I was a retailer I wouldnt be turning down her custom! [vodpod id=Groupvideo.2021534&w=425&h=350&fv=config%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Fplayer%2Femp%2Fconfig%2Fdefault.xml%3Fv13%26playlist%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fnews.bbc.co.uk%252Fmedia%252Femp%252F7850000%252F7853900%252F7853913.xml%26embedReferer%3D%26embedPageUrl%3D%2F1%2Fhi%2Fengland%2F7853913.stm%26config_settings_autoPlay%3Dtrue%26config_settings_showPopoutButton%3Dfalse%26config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_pageType%3Deav1%26config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_edition%3DDomestic]

Tesco has unveiled a range of budget wines, packaged in one-litre Tetra Paks and priced at £2.89.
The three-strong range, which includes a red, a white and a rosé, has been sourced from from Spanish producer Felix Solis Avantis.    

Tesco says it has launched the range to “support customer’s needs” in a rapidly changing market. But the introduction of the range also echoes the supermarket giant’s commitment to reduce its packaging waste by 25% by 2010.

Wine category manager, Andrew Carpenter, said: “The market has changed rapidly over the past 12 months, and we have responded quickly and effectively to these conditions to support our customers’ needs.

“While our average bottle spend is still over £4, an increasing number of customers are forced to limit their spend. Rather than lose them from the category entirely, we have responded with a stronger value offering.”