Vintage Crime: A Short History Of Wine Fraud/Rebecca Gibb (book review)

This morning, on my habitual overnight “tour” of the British national newspapers seeking items or stories of potential interest to Rusters, on the website of the Daily Mail I came across this review by Constance Craig Smith of a new book on the subject of wine called Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud written by an English “Master of Wine” Rebecca Gibb [University of California Press, £25, 282pp].

From my own perspective – having been a regular consumer of wine (mainly reds) approximately between the ages of eighteen and fifty but subsequently via choice or indeed circumstance having gradually drunk less and less of the stuff – I am happy to confess to the likes of the Rust‘s own Algy Belville (or indeed anyone else) to possessing practically zero knowledge or expertise in the subject.

So much so that one of my favourite tales is of the occasion that I once attended a Test Match at the Oval cricket ground with a group of pals that included a barrister who later sadly took his own life (a matter that need not trouble us here). To be blunt, we were all there for “craic”, not least picnics and large quantities of alcohol.

As it happened, during an afternoon break in proceedings upon the field of play, there was a degree of “toing & froing” by spectators in front of our stand, including at one stage an obvious Australia supporter who – in strolling past us – cheerily waved in one hand a ginormous bottle of wine [readers will hopefully forgive my ignorance of the official description of the size in question] in our direction.

As quick as as flash, in response, my barrister friend not only ‘brought the house down’ but prompted prolonged laughter and cheers by shouting out “Ah! … My favourite wine – RED!! …“

Anyway. For what it’s worth, I now provide a link to the review mentioned above, see here – BOOK REVIEW