Don't whine about low-alcohol wine

Headlines this morning have been screaming that the government is planning to “water down wine” to put a stop to “middle class drinking”.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Earl Howe, an undersecretary in the Department of Health, wants the EU to change the technical definition of wine from containing a minimum of 8.5% ABV to 4.5% - and is going to continue to lobby the EU to bring lower-alcohol wines back to the discussion table (metaphorically speaking).

As well as prompting the usual ranting about politicians meddling in people’s lives, there has been a fair amount of derision online for the “underwhelming” offering of lower alcohol wine. One commentator to the Daily Mail’s website described 8.5% ABV wine as tasting of “an immature bears [sic] armpit”, while Sunday Telegraph wine columnist Victoria Moore dismissed “artificially created” low alcohol wines as tasting “rubbish”.

As it happened, this morning I was sitting across a table from Thomas Jung, chief winemaker to Australian Vintage, as he discussed his new baby – the 5.5% ABV Miranda Summer Light range, which was unveiled two weeks ago and rolls into Tesco and Morrisons next month.

And there wasn’t a bear in sight.

Low and de-alcoholised wines are not new – Australian Vintage has been making them for more than 20 years, primarily for the Nordic countries – and in recent years, an increasing number of brands have come to market.

However, according to Jung, it is thanks to new techniques and technology that low-alcohol wine can start to hit the taste profile sought by demanding consumers, and deliver a quality proposition.

According to a recent report from Wine Intelligence, the sub-10.5% ABV wine category is growing “in stature” around the world, and Brand Phoenix – which co-owns First Cape Light – says it has the potential to become a 5 million-case category.

This demand is being “significantly” driven by consumers – the category is now worth £42m a year -– but Jung is convinced that we’re only at the beginning of the road towards better quality lower alcohol wine.

“It’s up to us an industry to ensure we put products on shelf that appeal to consumers, that are drinkable, approachable and deliver on quality expectation,” Jung said.

It seems the government agrees.

This article was first published in Daily Bread newsletter by The Grocer

Will Tesco let Toys be toys?

Now, you may not have noticed, but there’s been a backlash against all things pink – not the colour per se, but the fact it is getting to be nigh-on impossible to buy toys, clothing, or just about anything for children without being steered towards the kind of gender-colour stereotyping that would make Barbie proud.

Where once you had Lego bricks and the freedom of your imagination, now even construction toys are gender specific. Earlier this week, for example, LiteBrix brought out a range of construction toys with flashing lights – for boys, a space trooper robot; for girls, a fashion runway.

Now, I'm sure that many kids, girls and boys, would be very happy playing with the choices presented to them. What I object to is that it has got to the stage where virtually everything – from teethers and toddler bath toys upwards – are sign-posted pink for girls or baby blue for boys – and never the twain shall meet.

So it will come as a relief to some that Tesco has announced it is going to be removing all reference to gender on its online toys pages.

A Tesco spokesperson told The Grocer: “To help customers easily search through the range of toys that we offer, we categorise our toys in a number of ways including by price, age range and gender.

“We’ve recently carried out a review to understand what customers find useful, and as a result we’ll no longer be categorising toys by gender as we’ve found customers are not using this as a way to search.”

Parent lobby group Let Toys Be Toys, which successfully complained to Tesco in May that a chemistry set was being marketed as a boy’s toy – effectively stifling potential Baroness Greenfields or Marie Curies from the very start – said it was “really pleased to see that Tesco are moving in the right direction on an issue that is becoming increasingly important to customers”.

“However, we're just as concerned with in-store signs – if not more so, as they're more visible to children,” it added.

Tesco admitted the change was likely to take some time to complete and made no mention of its policy in-store. However, given that there is a (pink) kitchen aimed at small children advertised with the words “after she has finished cooking, she can wash up the pots in the sink”, any move seems to me to be decades late. (Although to be fair, this seems to be the manufacturer’s description, not just the retailer’s.)

This does bring me to a chicken/egg conundrum – do manufacturers and retailers go pink because kids demand it, or do kids like it because it is what is marketed at them?

As a child growing up in the 1980s, who alternated between spending time hanging upside down on a rope strung across the garden, climbing trees, and playing with cars with my sister, to spending hours badly sewing clothes for my favourite doll and covering myself and everything around me in glitter, I have to admit, I find it a shame that kids have to be channelled down a well-worn path rather than being allowed to forge their own.

But at least when it comes to exploring, Dora’s already out there.


This article was first published in The Grocer's Daily Bread newsletter

Keeping their cool

Tomorrow retailers will be bracing themselves for the latest supermarket share figures, with many worried for all sorts of reasons, not least of all the impact of the horsemeat scandal - and the numbers are not likely to be pretty, according to KantarWorldpanel’s Ed Garner.

Speaking at the British Frozen Food Federation’s (BFFF) conference on Thursday, Garner said that although frozen food had become the strongest growth area of grocery over the recession, there was “a very large elephant in the room in the shape of a horse”, which he said was more than likely to “p*ss on all the sandwiches”.

“The numbers won’t be pretty when you drill down to processed burgers and ready meals” warned Garner - but he pointed out that this was more than pure consumer reaction, as hundreds of products had been removed from shelves.

He said that the media coverage of people claiming that in future they will shop in farmers markets and butchers’ shops was “all fluff, as that is just what people say they are going to do.” Surveys which are not based on actual sales should be taken with a pinch of salt, he argued, and in the long term, the market would recover.

Nigel Broadhurst, buying director of Iceland also took a bullish attitude. “There are lying, cheating, rotten b**tards who put horsemeat in our previously very good quality products, who are doing it consciously and making a lot of money for themselves,” he said, adding that as the problem spanned across the entire supply chain, it needed to be tackled by all parts of the industry.

He decried the perception that has been promulgated in the media about frozen food in particular and called on a concerted and combined effort for the industry to work together to communicate the quality of frozen food to consumers and to keep innovating. “As an industry, [the frozen food industry] is struggling to persuade the market that great value doesn’t mean cheap rubbish,” he said. “It is time for a correction.”

Tough talk certainly – but nowhere near as tough as the task that lies ahead in terms of actually getting that message across to increasing sceptical shoppers.

 

This article was first published in the Daily Bread newsletter by The Grocer

Averting a recipe for Disaster

 

Yesterday saw the launch of an ambitious project to create a food manifesto for the under-fives, to tackle the problems of poor diets among young children.

The plan - to galvanise cross-party political support and enlist practical support from food industry stakeholders - is the idea of Ella’s Kitchen Paul Lindley, who wants to open up the debate on food policy and children’s nutrition in the UK.

It is, he says, a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted, long-term solution. He is also adamant that it is our collective responsibility – from retailers, manufacturers, healthy experts, the media and government - to ensure the next generation doesn’t suffer because of poor decisions that are made now.

Although obesity has captured the majority of the headlines in recent months, it was the statistics on malnutrition that were the most shocking. According to Defra, the number of children who included no fruit and vegetables in their diets had increased 33% between 2009 and 2010, while YouGov research on behalf of Ella’s Kitchen in December 2012 found that 26% of parents said the price of buying fresh ingredients was the main barrier to children healthily eating in the home.

Carmel McConnell, the founder of children’s charity Magic Breakfast, highlighted a Dickensian problem that simply should not happen in 2013 - the increasing numbers of small children in this country who do not have access to breakfast in the morning because of poverty and who have to turn up to school hungry.

Over the last 18 months, Lindley has enlisted the advice of key contributors involved in the food industry as well as health professionals, charities and food journalists to generate an overarching plan to tackle these multiple problems.

The seven-fold plan is certainly ambitious, not least in its primary aim of persuading all parties to agree to a 25-year cross-party manifesto to improve nutrition for infants in the UK. Other aims include an extension of the Healthy Start programme to improve support for new mothers and the provision of a free breakfast for every primary school child. As well as making cooking compulsory in all schools to ensure that essential skills can be passed on (which let’s face, it, is an obvious one), the project wants cooking and nutrition to be used as a central ‘prop’ across the broader curriculum to raise its profile.

However, the plan is not solely targeted at government – retailers and brands can get on board and it also calls on grocery brands to donate 1% of their annual TV spend to public service ads promoting healthy eating. Major retailers can provide practical help by offering cooking workshops at in-store cafes to close the link between food purchase and home-cooking. Similarly, the plan wants professional kitchens to throw open their doors twice a year.

There seemed genuine enthusiasm for it by everyone I spoke to at the launch, although one suspects that there might have been an element of preaching to the converted (bearing in mind that the launch was held in the conference room of Coutts private bank at the Gherkin). And although there was no representation from the retailers, food manufacturers and someone from the Department of Health  was there - which was heartening, given the project's aims -  in addition to charities, childcare experts and  nutritionalists,.

The challenge now will be to harness all that goodwill and publicity into firm action.


This was first published by The Grocers's Daily Bread newsletter

The Five Mile High Club

Fresh from 8000m ski descent of Manaslu in Nepal, legendary Everest climber Kenton Cool is still buzzing from the trip. Arabella Mileham caught up with him at the Ski Show at Olympia to find out how it went.

When you've summited the world's highest mountain as many times as Kenton Cool has, there's the slight chance of getting Everest fatigue, at least for a short while. With some of the toughest technical terrain firmly under his belt, alpine climber and adventurer Kenton Cool set himself a different challenge this year. Only four months after sitting on the top of the world for a jaw-dropping eighth time, he strapped a pair of touring skis to his rucksack, slung on his crampons and skied from the 8,163 metre peak of Manaslu in central Nepal, the eighth highest mountain on earth.

Kenton is now the only Brit with two 8,000m peak ski descents to his name, having shushed down Cho Oyo on a solo ski four years ago. So what prompted him to join this incredibly niche club?

"I love mountain adventure and the ski descent added that extra element", he explains over a coffee, although sheepishly admitting to healthy competition with business partner, Guy Willets, with whom he runs Dream Guides in Chamonix. During the winter the pair can be found creating private ski tours in the Mont Blanc Massif, while the summer sees them head off for the Alpine and Himalayan climbing season.

For someone who spends the majority of his career helping others push themselves to realise their dream, he confesses that it is good to have the chance to pursue his own every now and then.


Manaslu - one of the less well-known Himalayan mountain that sits in the Mansiri Himal, in the west of Nepal's central region - is only really on the radar for climbers keen to get some practice before attempting Everest. The unusually high level of snowfall for the region and pyramid shape of the mountain lends itself to a ski descent, however with blasts of 80mph winds regularly scouring the mountain, any pockets of powder are quickly demolished, making for a less than comfortable few runs.

Although Nepal was moving out of monsoon season when Kenton and the team arrived, the weather was still pretty abominable, both during the trek into basecamp and while waiting for the all important weather window.

"We were hit by a particularly bad year – the team was really challenged, we lost tents and had to dig the ropes out. If it has been Europe, it would have been fantastic powder, but the snow was blasted. Even on summit day there was howling wind and it was all in the balance all day long."

After a gruelling night at camp 4, the wind dropped and, heavily laden with rucksacks, touring skis and pole, they were able to make the six hour climb to the summit.  Then it was time to click into their bindings and rip down the mountain. “The initial gully from the top was quite good snow and we both made some good turns down it. As the mountain expanded out the wind crust appeared and linking turns became almost impossible. We slowly and steadily picked out way down to camp 4.”

He makes it sound so easy - but what is skiing at 8,000 metres really  like?

"Sodding hard work" according to Kenton. "Your legs and muscles are burning and your muscles screaming for oxygen. The fatigue, the heavy rucksack – it's a lot harder than walking down. You are very aware all the time and trying to scope the best lines and see where the dangers might be. We skied as much as we could – all that was ski-able, really and occasionally we managed some linked turns – but it's adventure skiing, not powder heaven."

Oxygen but no powder

"Climbing Everest is probably 85% mental strength and only 15% physical – and I think Manaslu was the same. Mentally I really had to build up to it – a lot of people didn't want me to do it, " he explained. "Obviously I’m a ski guide - but I’m a climber who became a skier, not a skier who became a climber."

Although proud of his earlier ski descent of Cho Oyo, this was the more enjoyable trip. "It was stressful skiing on my own - really tough. When I got down I was mentally exhausted. But on Manaslu, I came down re-energised. It was great to have a partner to share the ski adventure with – and I’m still buzzing. It was a brilliant trip".

He explains that every now and then, something happens in life that makes you think, 'that's how it ought to be'. "This was one of those rare times".

"Skiing for many people is a week in Val, a few piste runs, a nice lunch and a few more pistes then après in the bar," he says thoughtfully, adding that while there's nothing wrong with that, skiing is a far bigger sport and ought to be embraced. "There's freestyle, touring, cross–country - why not branch out and see what's there?"

With so much infectious enthusiasm for the mountains and pushing himself further, Kenton is already planning to complete his trilogy with another epic 8,000m ski next year – this time from the top of Shishapangma, over the border in Tibet.

Somehow, when he says he's not a strong skier, it’s very hard to believe him.

photos copyright Kenton Cool. This article was published on welove2ski, October 2010.

Blissfully soft 'n' fluffy snow

Fantastic day today with some of the best skiing in ages - which is just as well as I fly home tomorrow. (Sigh!)

 

When I moseyed back from the Pub Mont Fort last night, it was one of those lovely crispy clear nights where all the mountains were lit up by starlight and gleaming atmospherically through the darkness. So I wasn’t really expecting there to be lots of fresh snow up the mountain this morning. Unfortunately I didn’t quite get first lifts (damn both beer and packing!) but it was still fabulously soft and fluffy underfoot when I did.

Perhaps I should have had a proper plan of where to ski on such glorious snow, but there were lightly shifting clouds screening the blue, so it seemed best to follow the densest patches, where the cloud appeared the whispiest.

Warming up with some lovely off-piste around Lac de Vaux, I whipped through the pow and then headed up Mont Fort, where the only patch of blue sky was lingering. The snow was deliciously soft, probably the best I've seen it in ages, but unfortunately the cloud started to creep over and soon the peak disappeared into glittering mists so I started chasing patches of blue, down Tortin and over towards Siviez and Nendaz.

As usual the Combatzeline was rather cruddy and juddery by late afternoon and the least said about the Medran the better, but otherwise a fab day. It's been slightly weird coming out again as a seasonnaire, but also a lot of fun. So until next time, Verbier, farewell.

Savoleyres and seasonnaires

Arabella Mileham, reports on the snow conditions in Verbier
- February 23, 2010

Great day skiing over in Savoleyres today. It’d snowed overnight and although it was still pretty cloudy in resort, the cloud was definitely the thickest over the Medran, so I headed out in the opposite direction. Despite expecting another white-out, I was really glad that I did. The snow conditions were lovely – lots of fluffy goodness with some patched of powder to be found here and there. Although it was making a half-hearted attempt at snowing, some weak sunshine managed to get through and even when the snow became proper flurries in the afternoon, the visibility remained good. However it is beginning to feel like Spring– riding up the cranking chair-lift from Tzoumaz, I could hear birds singing, although the tell-tale Spring sound of running water luckily still hasn’t made it.

Over the last few days, I’ve been concentrating on improving my technique – having become horribly lazy in recent trips and indulged my desire to rip up the miles. When you only have a few short days as opposed to five long months in resort, it’s easy to get into the habit of just doing the stuff you enjoy rather than being a tad more disciplined. So it was lots of short, stabby turns and heavy mogul-busting, which has been crying out for improvement for a while.

Most of the off-piste was already fairly tracked out, but there was still a little of the fresh stuff off the shoulder of the Verbier-facing south side of the mountain and a great little gully hidden between the main wide pistes. I finished up skiing through the trees under the lift, heading towards Tzoumaz, which was fine, until I found a steady trickle of people walking uphill towards me.

Now I don’t mind hiking anywhere when there’s the promise of a glorious powder field at the end of the hike, but I when you have to drag yourself up to a chair-lift because Televerbier can’t get the Tzoumaz bubble going and don’t warn you in advance, it’s a slightly different matter. I think people were stuck on it for a while. It’s a shame there were no ice-hockey playing monks on the small rink below the bubble this week, robes flying in the wind – the slightly random sight that greeted me last time I was over in Savoleyres.

Right now, a seasonnaire party is about to break out in staff accommodation, so perhaps I’d better remove my laptop to a safer place. One of the chefs is returning home tomorrow with a bust shoulder so it looks like it’ll be an interesting night. Things are kicking off with Jaeger-bombs followed by the promise of champagne. Considering there aren’t any glasses (and even the jam jars have run out), it’s proving slightly difficult to coordinate – the preferred method seems to be swigging from the bottle first and then the can of red bull, followed by vigorous head-shaking to mix the two together… Classy!!