Ch'ng Poh Tiong March '10 column: There's a Tiger in my wine(2)

‘Ready to drink now’, when spoken by the proprietor or sales director really means: ‘We need you to pay for the bottles now, even though the wine is nowhere near ready for at least another five to 10 years, because we need help with our cashflow.’

We mustn’t be too harsh here, because the proprietor has little choice in the matter. Wine production, like any other business, requires financing. And any other leeway he or she may have is not helped when legislation taxes a winery as soon as grapes become wine, rather than when the bottles are actually sold.

Wealthy new converts to wine often also let out that the wine is ‘ready to drink now’ after they have uncorked a Bordeaux first growth just four or five years young. There’s no point telling them that the wine is not ready and that it’s better (and cheaper) to drink a cru bourgeois for the timebeing, because someone with new money is even more stupid than someone who doesn’t want to have money in the first place.

When you think about it, why should someone who has just splurged several thousand dollars’ or pounds’ worth of wine on others have to feel guilty, or wish to be told they have done something foolish? They should, instead, be praised to their chandeliered rafters and be worshipped as fat new Bacchuses (if only to ensure future invitations).

Let’s, therefore, go one up on Tiger, and just reward deception with more deception by appearing to enjoy committing wine infanticide.