John Booth wines evolved from having a shop called Booths for the last 27 years. The shop sold fine food and wine and had been selected by the Which wine guide and the Sunday Telegraph guide plus numerous mentions by other writers.
Changes
My brother and I, after nearly thirty years of working together thought it was the proper time to sell the shop. This gave me time to relax, look around and basically be lazy. It also gave me the chance to go shopping at supermarkets, even buying wines. I was shocked by their abysmal quality .
The wines I bought were of a low standard. All had been sugared, by this I mean there was a high proportion of residual sugar that had not been turned into alcohol. A decent bottle of wine should still be revealing facets of its components on its last mouthful. Instead I received a huge blast of sweet fruit and occasionally false acidity and then nothing. All the wines I tasted gave this impression of being confected or manufactured. Then I read this article in the newspaper
Tim Atkin wrote in the Observer
I'd like to think we have become comfortable with the taste of tannin because it's an essential component of most good red wines. Along with acidity, tannin provides backbone and structure, as well as helping a wine to age. Too much tannin can be unpleasant, but provided the dryness is balanced by other things, it's part of what distinguishes red wine from fruit juice.
But have we really moved on from sweet reds? I'm not so sure. The majority of the UK's most popular red wines contain noticeable levels of residual sugar. I'm not talking about the smoothness that comes from higher alcohol levels here - remember that alcohol is fermented sugar - but from actual sweetness. Winemakers leave unfermented sugar in their wines because they know that sweetness sells.
The leading Australian brands realised this a long time ago. Indeed, sweetness is one reason why mass-market wines from Down Under have been so successful, claiming six of the top 10 brands in the UK. If anything, the top American brands are even more sugary - you should try a bottle of Blossom Hill.
So I am on a mission to show wines that offer good value and flavour [ just like startrek?] The best way to demonstrate this is through a series of tastings which will carry on through the year.