WINE MATTHEW JUKES’ LIST

During the nearly 20 years that I’ve been lucky enough to work for Weekend magazine, I’ve recommended more than 6,500 bottles in my column. It makes me dizzy to think of how many different wines I’ve had to taste in the process, as

I’m so particular that only about 3 per cent of the bottles I sample make the grade.

What a ride it’s been! Over the past 25 years, our wine-drinking habits have changed beyond recognition. While the 1980s were all about tipples like chardonnay and Beaujolais Nouveau, increasingly sophisticated production methods led to an explosion of New World wines in the following decade and, more recently, the growing popularity of once rare grapes such as mencia, fiano, grüner veltliner and cataratto. The UK now has the most diverse wine market in the world.

One of the biggest transformations has been in the English and Welsh wine scene. It was in its infancy when Weekend launched, but today we make stunning wines for a global audience. Then there’s food and wine matching, scoffed at by other journalists when I first started writing about it in my column but now a cornerstone of our industry.

Unfortunately, taxes on wine are at an alltime high, so consumers have to pay much more in real terms than they would have done 25 years ago. But on the plus side, while supermarket wine selections wax and wane in quality, independent wine merchants’ selections seem to get ever more exciting, so it’s easy to track down great bottles, largely thanks to the internet and a small but talented band of wine buyers. I, too, promise to do my bit to filter out all the rubbish and keep alerting you to the good stuff.

The wonderful thing about wine today is that it’s no longer for the privileged few, and this is what makes me so proud to be able to share my knowledge with you each week.