Europe unveils plans for ‘socialist wine utopia’

Socialist wine
Guevara pic: Free SVG

European wine bodies have announced a new ‘socialist’ approach to wine information which they claim will ‘massively reduce’ levels of inequality across the continent.

‘How can it be right that DRC sells for thousands of dollars a bottle, yet La Manchan table wine is just a few Euros?’ said Carl Marques of the European Wine Promotional body, Vinequality.

‘It’s an injustice that shames us all.’

Euro-cellars

Vinequality says it has introduced a progressive ‘levelling down’ agenda that redresses the balance by ensuring all producers are ignored equally.

From now on, it will be illegal for wineries to disseminate information about any of their people, products or estate, and individual visits will be replaced by vast blind tastings in ‘euro-cellars’ where the identity of the bottles remains hidden.

When journalists do need to visit a winery, they will be blindfolded, forced to submit questions in advance and required to put their notebook through a de-stemmer before leaving.

Let us praise

‘Allowing critics to praise good bottles is just plain wrong,’ said Orla de Seime of the pressure group Platitudes Not Attitude (PNA). ‘For every bottle that gets talked up, dozens more get wilfully ignored for no reason other than the fact they’re crap.

‘But what kind of message does that send to a talentless producer with a poor quality vineyard?’

It was, she said, time to ‘stop the recommendation lottery and recognise that all wines are created equal, even when they aren’t.’

Scoop de foudre

However, journalists have criticised the scheme, saying that the socialist agenda makes their job impossible.

‘Not knowing what I’m tasting means I can’t recommend it to any of the six people who read my column,’ said drinks writer, Edmund Dopey-Toff.

‘It renders the entire trip even more pointless than it would be normally. Though I’ll still go anyway because it’s four days of free food, some time away from the wife and the chance to top up my tan.’

Medals all round

Competitions have said they might also be able to learn from the new ‘judgment free’ ethos.

‘In the past our judges have always gone down the route of giving good wines Gold medals and fairly crap ones Bronze,’ said Efri Wonza-Winna of the International Wine Challenge.

‘But maybe we would all be better off if we just gave every single bottle a Silver.

‘That way nobody would ever have to drink a bad bottle ever again.’

Click here to read about the EU’s bold ‘no- and low-fun’ future

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