At the London International Wine Fair last month I heard a lot of griping about a recent taste test conducted by Richard Wiseman,a psychologist at Hertfordshire University, for claiming that most people can’t tell the difference between cheap plonk and finewwine,but “fool themselves into thinking expensive wines taste better”.The results of his tasting at the Edinburgh Science Festival suggested there’s a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as cheap or expensive based on taste alone.

You might think we should all be delighted with this news as we can now save a lot of money buying cheap wine as it all tastes the same anyway – or tastes even better if it’s cheap! But the point is cheap industrial wine can be manipulated with a chemistry-set of manufactured yeasts and sugars to be fruity and “easy drinking” but that’s where its appeal ends. It has no character – it’s the wine trade’s answer to Coca Cola.

Sadly there’s no short cut to wine appreciation, it’s not something that can be easily “dumbed” down….a bit like golf I suppose? I’m hopeless at golf and can just about hack my way round the course with the most forgiving and basic set of clubs. But hand me a top set of Pro Clubs and I can barely hit the ball at all. If you asked me which clubs I’d prefer I’d say the basic clubs every time and that the professional clubs make no difference, in fact they make my game even worse!

If you occasionally enjoy the finer things in life it’s worth persevering and taking some time to learn to taste and appreciate real wine. Once you’ve got it you’ll never look back. Consider the fact that with UK duty and VAT now at a staggering £2.17 per bottle plus marketing, packaging and distribution costs, a £4.99 bottle gets you hardly any wine at all!