I HAD been out partying after a wine tasting in London, and caught the last Tube back to my brother’s place where I was staying. Cocooned in a warm carriage I was soon fast asleep and remained so until we juddered to a final stop on the far side of the Circle Line.
Sitting on the night bus after an hour’s wait in the rain should have been the moment to make creative connections between booze and the underground. Instead I sat cursing my fate and left it to Nikki Welch to dream up the wine Tube map.
It is a brilliantly simple idea based around 54 styles, regions and grape varieties that act as stations. The logic goes like this: rather than sit for ever at sauvignon central, for example, why not branch out? You could take the aromatic line to albarino and riesling, or head west to semillon and vinho verde.
I met Welch in Edinburgh where she lives after 13 years at Thierry’s, a big wine importer in England. It seems there wasn’t a eureka moment on the Piccadilly line or even a night bus, but rather a growing frustration with the trade’s failure to engage consumers with its highfalutin vocabulary.
With lines of bottles decorated with Post-it notes, she assembled the various lines and sketched out her first map in 2011. “It was about trying to make connections and make wine explorable,” she explained. “The practical advice people really wanted was simply: ‘If you liked that, try this.'”
Her idea has since evolved into The Pocket Wine Guide (Birlinn £7.99), and will soon become an app.
Of course the wine Tube map only takes you so far, but it would help anyone navigate their way into the subject. In the supermarket faced with a wall of wine like paint in B&Q and with nobody to ask, it’s unsurprising if people are confused. Three years ago, having surveyed 2,000 shoppers, Morrisons claimed only 26 per cent of us have faith in our wine-buying decisions.
I blame those endless dodgy deals that dictate the way we shop. Prices ping up and down with little if any regard to value, and most promotions are smoke and mirrors, especially if they shout "half-price". The only way out of this promotional loop that accounts for more than two-thirds of wine sales is to acquire a little knowledge, and perhaps a map.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here