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 Since his first book ‘Wine’, appeared in 1966, Hugh Johnson has been making the subject of wine approachable to all with his witty and humorous style. His Story of Wine, World Atlas of Wine with Jancis Robinson and Wine Companion are classics. His other books include the bestseller ‘Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book’ and make him one of the most favourite and sought out wine authors.
Things may have changed a lot since 5 decades ago when he ventured into wine writing but Hugh Johnson, the Master of wine books, says wine writers couldn’t survive then-and cannot survive on wine writing alone even today. However, he admitted coyly that he had been extremely lucky in a world that didn’t exist when he started writing.
Hugh was one of the featured speakers at the Symposium where he impressed one and all with his modesty, wit and frankness. ‘There was no such thing as professional wine critics. I have strong reservation to be known as a wine critic. I am not a critic but more a commentator. If I don’t like some wine, I just don’t like to talk about it; but I won’t like to criticise,’ is how he started his talk.
‘When I started my career I wanted to simply write- about fashion, trends and travels. Some newspapers had reserved small space for wine. I didn’t aspire for the job but I knew I wanted to write and had to start somewhere. I started as a copywriter for one of the magazines published by Vogue. Writing about wine regions seemed to be a good living as one could travel to those destinations.’
He claims he has been lucky but in fact he has been a visionary and pro-active and took his writings to New York which was hungry for such informative education. ‘I realised I could go to New York and multiply my readership by 10, since I knew English and that is the language in the US too. I wonder why my compatriots didn’t do it before me but that decision turned out to be my take-off point.’
Pay was very little as a wine writer in magazines. Being an early wine writer-there was no money, in fact. ‘I wanted to write a book but needed some financial support. I went to various publishers requesting for an advance and they laughed. Being an early wine writer had its financial disadvantages. But one publisher agreed finally!’ And there was no looking back.
Reminiscing about those days, Johnson said there was no PR agency in the wine business then. In fact there was no wine business-there were only wine merchants. "I decided to start by writing an article on ‘What to drink with Christmas turkey? 'I had no idea what I would write. So I asked three senior and successful people. They were all gung-ho to drink chateaux wines, of course! But my job was to get their opinion only and publish as a journalist.
Positives and negatives of wine evolution
 ‘The evolution has been extremely positive. Everyone knows with new technology the quality is improving. I think education is very important. Earlier, as the children grew up they were learning from the same professor but internet opened up the knowledge vistas, along with the obvious fact that the New World was progressively scientific in that direction. They didn’t have natural conditions favourable to them like Europe entered cool autumn after harvest-that didn’t happen in Australia.
Refrigeration was introduced by an Algerian who invented it. This was picked up by Australians and taken to South Australia. Speed of fermentation was in focus then. But more or less, same ideas have gone on for the rest of the century."
‘Negatives come in the form of business point. It’s like the preacher who tends to bend the rules to suit the market. More the wine making is allowed to be natural, the better it is. It is product driven. We taste wine and tell people it is brilliant. We are the wine producers who know that each vintage is given by the soil. Give it a four-letter and sell to the world –was some people’s idea (he was referring to wines that are tinkered with and bulk wines without personality). But the gentleman that he is, Johnson was visibly uncomfortable and said with a tone of finality, ‘I don’t want to talk about negatives.’
What does he think of countries like Japan, China and India where the consumption is increasing and going down in countries like France and Europe where more of prohibition is going on? ‘No Englishman can believe politicians are anti wine- it is being Anti-Cross'. But he pointed out an old case in Paris where a person involved in a legal case was found drinking an average of 16 bottles of wine a day compared to the average 6 that was consumed those days when people didn’t drink water but wine because of impurities. 'It’s not bad news that France is drinking less. It is more important that when a wine is labelled as Pomerol, this is what it is.’
Evolution in UK market
‘In UK there has been an evolution going on for half a century. This may be a very British aspect. We have a class system that applies to drinking wine as well. For instance for the upper classes, Port has snob value. It is like that in many parts of the world (India, China and Hong Kong would perhaps be high on his list). I know people who don’t drink Bordeaux unless it is a Cru-Classé wine and in the process they miss out a lot! I think we should have great wine for only special occasions-to enjoy something which is top value.’
Evolution of the Critics and debate between terroirists and others
‘Regarding critics, my attitude is based on being appreciative and so I am considered old fashioned. Several years ago my New York producer brought me a manuscript with Tasting Notes. I told him this guy seemed very enthusiastic. There were numbers against the Notes. I told him you just cannot score wines! Well, this was a lawyer from Baltimore (he was talking of Robert Parker, of course!). I didn’t know that one day he would control the world. I realise people who are not really interested in wine would go straight to the score. But Algebra and pricing are not to be taken in the same way.
Everyone has a reservation since wine is subjective. There is no such thing as an objective number to apply to wine. I have always said I don’t like scoring. I am not anti-Parker but I am not capable of scoring- I just can’t do it! On the other hand technology makes wines taste more and more similar. More modern the wine is less it is expressive. But I think hygiene is still number one.’
Expectations for Long Term
Hugh has huge expectations and is quite excited about the new varieties that may take the centre stage in future. Talking of the age of ampelography-identification and classification of grape varieties, he said, ‘Earlier the producers would copy the best selling grapes. Frank Schoonmaker in the US (the legend who was the best known writer till his death in 1976 and imported wines for 40 years and labelled it as ‘Frank Schoonmaker Selections’) started putting the labels ‘made from cabernet grape of Bordeaux’. This drew attention to famous grape varietals.’
‘As José Vouillamoz who co-authored ‘Wine Grapes’ with Jancis Robinson and who I met last night, says, there are 1700 grape varietals. (Jose was a Speaker at the WWS last year-editor). We didn’t hear about many of those grapes merely 10 years ago! We are talking of Switzerland today. Who would have known about Petite Arvine (white wine grape planted in the Valais region of Switzerland)? A friend of mine in Libourne (near Pomerol and Saint-Emilion) was almost jailed for trying an unapproved variety!!’
He was also very appreciative of the impoverished growers who seem to have come up with newer varieties. ‘It is a historical question. Life is short and most people had miserable times. They had better wine varieties. It is magical that poverty stricken people came out with better wines.’
 The extremely modest Johnson repeated that he was a commentator and not a critic-which was so important for education. He also emphasised that ‘we have to stop people thinking that a wine with 85 points is better than 84.’
In a question-answer session that had lively discussions, he concluded, ‘I think the spirit of the experiment is what drives the whole process. There is nothing like a winemaker taking me to a corner and showing me something and saying- what do you think of this?’
Hugh Johnson seems to be as inquisitive and curious as he was 50 years ago. As I was chatting with him about my meeting with Hugh at a wine tasting at the Hotel Oberoi in Delhi about 17-18 years ago, one of the delegates approached him and said he was conducting a water tasting (!) in one of the rooms and if Mr. Johnson could kindly come for 15 minutes. Intrigued with the tasting as I was, he looked at his watch and said he was terribly busy but ,’yes, I would be glad to come for 15 minutes.’
Subhash Arora |