Ring in the New with these striking crackers

My godson brought me to my first Intelligence Squared debate last week in London. The Emmanuel Centre in Westminster, scene of so many political gatherings of late, had a capacity crowd to hear Jancis Robinson and Oz Clarke debate the New World versus the Old in terms of wine.

Jancis, who has recently launched the latest edition of the World Atlas of Wine, in conjunction with its creator, Hugh Johnson, was predictably detailed and eclectic in her fact-rich delivery. Oz, a former actor, was wildly entertaining and funny but tended to present a picture of the European wine industry that was ten, maybe twenty years out of date.

However, he kept returning to a very germane point. The New World, he argued, is not so much a place or places, but rather a state of mind.

The debate was won by Jancis, but Oz managed to win over a substantial number of those who were undecided before the speeches were made. The proceedings will be available to watch online; keep an eye on intelligencesquared.com.

The state of mind theory is interesting. By contrast to the Old World, where tradition, geography, cuisine and all sorts of influences create individual wine cultures, New World wine people are not so much inclined to ask why; they tend to ask why not? The stereotypical view of New World winemaking that was prevalent a decade ago — of complete control freakery — is no longer truly applicable.

In New Zealand and Chile, to name just two, it’s no longer all cloned yeasts as wild ferments are becoming more common.

It’s interesting, however, that the tendency towards natural wines, made with minimal intervention, is still pretty much a European movement and I can’t help wonder if it is, in part, a reaction to all the oenological science that the New World industry has championed over the past 40 years. Anyway, here are five New World crackers that have impressed me recently.

It’s no longer all cloned yeasts in winemaking