On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Nick Maclaren wrote:

As I said, corn will not
reach that stage in the UK, as we don't get enough sun. Germany
gets slightly more, as may be seen by the superiority of German
wines to English ones.

You do bang on about the inferiority of English wines. That's the second
time in as many months that I've seen you put English wines down. Since
you don't usually say things about which you have no experience I assume
that you must have tasted English wines recently. Therefore I would put
your opinion down to personal taste rather than quality per se.

Of course there can be bad English wines just as there can be bad wines
from anywhere else. But as far as the good wines are concerned it would
be better not to make a qualitative judgement. Wines from different
areas taste different and English wines are different to German or
French wines. They are not worse or better, they are different.

Are you going to say that a Müller-Thurgau from the Rhine area is
inferior to a Müller-Thurgau from the Burgenland area of Austria or
Hungary? It is true that they are very different from each other but a
qualitative judgement is purely subjective. They are simply different.
Now it is true that a Müller-Thurgau grown in England *is* probably
inferior because it ripens too late for the English climate, but most
English vineyards don't grow that any more because it does make an
inferior wine over here. But they now grow varieties that *do* ripen
well in England and, as a result, the quality of English wine has
improved by leaps and bounds over the last ten years or so.

I am not arguing with your contention that Germany gets more sun than we
do, just with your opinion that English wines are inferior because of
that.

David

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