Bordeaux campaign, vintage 1934

At Fortnum & Mason today to taste a few sherries with wine buyer Tim French. Tim produced an old Fortnum's wine list from 1938, which made fantastic reading.

'It's amazing how tight the range was in those days', he remarked. There's a big section on Champagne, a page of Port from the wood, a page of Vintage Port, lots of Madeira, more than a page of sherry, then large sections on Bordeaux, Burgundy, Hock and Mosel.

The rest of France has a small section, and then there's a fascinating - if brief - list of 'Empire wines' (see below). It was fascinating also to see the Bordeaux section, including the 1934 campaign that includes both merchant-bottled and Chateau-bottled releases. How the wine world has changed.

Another Tesco Press Tasting

Usually, most supermarkets will have a couple of press tastings a year. Tesco have had three in 2007, altogether showing almost 500 different wines. That's a lot. It's largely because they've been making a real effort with their range, and it shows: there are some interesting wines here, and the quality is consistently good. It's hard to be objective about which of the big retailers has the best range, but in broad-brush terms it seems that Tesco and Asda are on the up, while Sainsbury is treading water a bit. M&S seems to be doing quite well, but I don't know Morrisons/Safeway/Coop well enough to say too much about their performance.

Today's Tesco tasting was held, once again, at County Hall, overlooking the Thames. It's a really good venue, although I almost wandered into the Star Wars exhibition on the way out after getting lost in a maze of oak-panelled corridors.

Interesting wines included: my first look at the 2000 Musar, which is a pretty good vintage for this wine; the 2001 Noval LBV, which is really good, once again; a lovely PX from Gonzalez Byass that's only £4.99/half; Tyrell's Vat 1 Semillon 2000, which is a great Hunter white that's worth its £20 asking price; and a beefy but elegant Yering Station Reserve Shiraz Viognier 2005.

Stormhoek's Threshers discount goes big

The BBC News site has picked up on the Threshers (UK off licence chain) 40% off deal - a piece of viral marketing originated by Web 2.0 dudes Stormhoek. The downloadable pdf coupon seems to have spread like crazy.

The beauty of this bit of marketing is that everyone benefits, and it isn't as mad an offer on Threshers part as it seems: they have a 3 bottles for 2 across almost their entire range, which works out as a 33% discount. Punters with the piece of paper effectively get another 7% off. So they won't be losing money on the deal. [The wines are priced such that they are good but not exceptional value at the 3 for 2 price.] Everyone seems to be selling wine cheap these days. The UK's two largest supermarkets are currently offering 25% discounts on multiple purchases.