Dominic Sandbrook

The first Bordeaux wine, so the first Claret, to be sold in London, not labelled as Bordeaux or as Claret, and not labelled... Because they always used to have the label... Well, often on the label, they would have the name of the wine merchant, wouldn't they?

Yeah.

But this bottle that Peeps has been drinking has the name of the estate that made the wine.

Isn't that interesting?

So the French make the best wines, but the people who decide which those wines are, are English consumers.

Yes.

And I think that's still true today.

i mean when you say english consumers it's obviously aristocratic consumers well do you know what it's funny we're talking about the english palate but as late as the 1950s most english people never ever drank wine in any given year it's such an elite exclusive thing yeah so it's it's it's it's very much the kind of the upper class is

Well, of course, it becomes very useful later in the 20th century when they're facing competition from the New World.

And they can say, well, look, you may have this, you may have that, but you don't have our tradition and our terroir.

Right.

Well, people genuinely believed that, didn't they, for a long time until the 1970s, the most interesting decade in history.

And we come to our final moment, which is the judgment of Paris.

So that's 1976.

And actually, members of the Restless History Club will be hearing a bit more about this

on our bonus episode on Wednesday with the great wine writer Henry Jeffries, who will be talking about this and indeed about wine in the new world and the history behind it and the relationship with the British Empire and so on.

So that's on Wednesday.

But Tom, tell us a little bit about the judgment of Paris, because this is probably the most celebrated moment, one of the most controversial moments in the entire modern history of winemaking.

To be fair, we've all had American wines that taste like that.

But then, so a huge problem for American winemakers is that a lot of Americans think they shouldn't be making wine at all because they don't think alcohol should have any place in American culture.