At this time of year, bottles carefully brought home from southern Europe are traditionally opened all over northern Europe in a fever of anticipation. But those who expect their treasured wine mementoes to prolong the warmth and languor of the summer holiday just past are all too often disappointed. The red, white or rosé that tasted so glorious on a vine-shaded terrace seems just plain ordinary under grey skies. Cue the perennial question: why doesn't this wine travel?
Except that it is rarely the wine's fault. That wine tasting is a subjective experience is vividly illustrated by this frustrating phenomenon. It is almost invariably ourselves, our mood and our environment that have changed rather than the wine. Modern wine is made to withstand long journeys. Many a bottle on a British supermarket shelf was trucked across the Channel only days before.
And this phenomenon is by no means restricted to wine. Dusty bottles of ouzo, Metaxa and Fundador lurk in cocktail cabinets everywhere as testament to hopeful travellers keen to import liquid souvenirs. Even professionals are not immune to the charms of local drinks that take on a quite unjustified allure when consumed sur place. I recall quite happily downing local brandy and lemonade, a combination I would regard as an abomination in London, on our one and only holiday in Cyprus.
But as more and more holidaymakers fly, rather than drive to and from their destinations, these liquid souvenirs are becoming a thing of the past. In our new security-conscious era, flying is an operation that is inimical to the old mores of a wine-lover. I remember clearly how outraged I felt the first time I encountered any restrictions on flying with a bottle of wine. It was 8am one morning in 2002, before British airports had started to collect all our water bottles. I was being screened at Shanghai airport before boarding a plane for the currently troublesome far western Chinese region of Xinjiang. Just as I was leaving my hotel that morning, the local distributor had left me a sample of Grace Vineyards' Chairman's Reserve, said to be the most promising wine then made in China. There had been no time, or inclination, to try it then but I thought I'd be able to take it with me on my flight to Urümqi and taste it that evening. But no
