Writing a weekly column about wine for a national newspaper isn’t easy. I’ve been there done that – for 21 years. Keeping each article fresh is challenging. Some journalists don’t bother, but Fiona Beckett did. That’s why I was sad to read she was retiring from The Guardian after 14 years in the post. Fiona always tried to say something new, to encourage her readers to experiment and trade up.
Fiona’s arrival at The Guardian coincided with my departure from The Observer. Sliding doors and all that. The paper literally reduced my column to a single column and I didn’t want to be someone who just penned weekly wine recommendations. I don’t regret my decision for a nanosecond. Most newspaper wine columns pay their authors less than they did then; the space given to wine has continued to shrink.
In her final piece for the paper, Fiona talked about what had changed since 2010. Some of the things she chose to highlight surprised me. She says that she prefers “lighter, fresher wines” than she did when she started. No quarrels there. I think we all do, although I was never a fan of high alcohol fruit bombs. She also wrote about the rise and rise of rosé. Again, fair enough, although too many of these wines taste as if they’ve been sourced from the same gigantic vat, especially in Provence.
Greek wines got a mention too. It is indeed remarkable that Aldi stock an Assyrtiko – the country’s most distinctive
