The Beverage Report or from the Graves to the cradle

 

In the general election of 1945, the Labour Party ousted Winston Churchill's Conservative Party. The new prime minister, Clement Attlee, announced he would introduce the welfare state outlined in Sir William Beveridge’s 1942 Report. This included the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with free medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide “social security” so that the population would be protected from the “cradle to the grave”.

The idea that there might be some correlation between wine and health benefits goes back to 1974, when a homeopathic doctor and acupuncturist called E. A. Maury published a book called Soignez-vous par le Vin (Heal Yourself with Wine). Maury believed that the mineral content of certain wines, taking on the character of the soil in which the grapes were grown, was of great use medicinally. The book starts off with an introduction to the wine regions of France, stating what he feels about wines which are particularly suited to overcome certain maladies. The rest of the book is devoted to a lexicon of various ailments, with appropriate suggestions for their treatment using wine. So with “x” disease you should be drinking St. Emilion and with “y”, perhaps a Nuits St. Georges. Champagne was a “must”, good for fever, liver sluggishness and coronary heart disease. That's because dry or brut Champagne contains, among other things, two important elements for a feverish person: phosphorus, which is very stimulating, and sulphur in its sulphate of potassium form, whose detoxifying action on the body has been established. Of course, this counsel was confined to the wines of France, as at the time, nobody in France could ever believe that decent wines (let alone health-giving wines) could be produced anywhere else. This conception was rudely demolished at a famous (or as the French would have it, infamous) tasting in Paris in 1976.

Research done since this book was published has found that it is the polyphenols in wine, particularly red wine, that are the agents that are keeping arteries clear. Scientists and doctors have long claimed it is good for the heart - and now a hospital is prescribing wine on its wards. Nurses are giving heart patients at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon two glasses a day! Heart surgeon Dr William McCrea, who instigated the scheme, said the idea came from looking at the health statistics of the French, whose rate of deaths from heart attacks is half of those in the UK. They tend to drink more regularly and don’t binge. Seems to be working well and additionally it has been found that cheaper reds are healthier, because fine wines lose the antioxidants in the barrel.

So undo the screwcap from your Chateau Plonque and get it nicely administered from a lovely nurse, knowing full well that you will be looked after from the Graves to the cradle!

Some musings on 50 years of air travel

Flying back from Genoa the other day, I mused over the quarter bottle of Spanish wine offered to me by British Airways. It wasn't a bad wine at all - I noticed that it had been sourced for BA by Bibendum, an independent wine merchant. Not that I have any problem with Bibendum, I have always admired them for the quality of wines that they handle and I am sure that BA have made a good choice here. It seems (perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong) that they now have a monopoly on supplying wine for BA.

It's a far cry from the days when BA employed Masters of Wine to make the selections for them and it caused me to muse further on how cabin service has developed over the years that I have been flying.

My first flight recollection was as a teenager, I flew on holiday to Copenhagen. Sitting next to the wing I noticed flames coming out of the turbo prop engine, but I was comforted by a nice hot meal on the flight. Right up until the nineties, I think, airlines prided themselves on getting a famous chef to devise meals on long haul flights - even in Economy. Wine flowed and the meal was always rounded off by the offering of liqueurs or Port to make these flights you could really enjoy instead of the platitude you get from the Purser stating that "we hope you enjoyed your fight with us" nowadays.

Also now, I have had some pretty disgusting food on a plane - seemingly grudgingly given out on long haul flights, usually a choice of chicken or beef (pasta if you are a vegetarian) all of which horribly overcooked. With some airlines you get a glass of wine and some not, all in all it sometimes seems that the cabin crew are doing you a favour! Some airlines are better than others, of course, and on balance I suppose British Airways is still my favourite airline. Certainly, their loyalty programme is one of the best around.

In the sixties, seventies and eighties, I had the occasion to fly from London to Inverness a couple of times each year. When I first flew, we always had a splendid cooked breakfast on the morning flight up - then it was changed to a cold breakfast and then, nothing at all! Another great flying recollection was flying my car from Lydd to Le Touquet for the princely sum of £21 return and getting some food and drink on the flight as well!

The advent of the budget airlines really started to change the scene. Long haul budget airlines soon found out that they could be undercut by large commercial and State owned airlines and Laker and the all business budget airline, Maxjet didn't take long to finish up in money heaven. A pity - I flew both, and I thought they gave good value for money at the time. On the short haul side, Ryanair came in with a bang and I used them a lot at the beginning of the century, because they really were so much cheaper and you could put up with the discomfort, as the flights rarely lasted more than 2 hours. But of course, Ryanair found out that in order to survive they had to make lots and lots of hidden add-ons, which brought the price up to unacceptable levels for the comfort and experience provided, especially at check in. I haven't used Ryanair for three or four years now, as the price difference doesn't warrant the excruciating discomfort one has had to suffer.

So where does air travel take us now? Well, the big airlines have cut their margins to the bone, it seems. On my recent flight to Genoa, I noticed that the basic fare was £46, but taxes, fuel supplements etc., brought this up to £118. The big winners here have been the various governments imposing these stealth taxes and they will have no compunction in raising them so that in order to keep prices reasonable, the airlines may have to cut their margins even further. This will probably mean less food and drink on the plane (unless you pay for the poor value fare you will get in this respect), or some airlines will inevitably go out of business.