Bastille Day with Patricia

While the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille and the founding of the Republic, July 14 unsurprisingly for this wine enthusiast is always a good reminder of the oenological delights France produces. France’s position as the world’s dominant wine producer has perhaps over the last twenty years waned just a little at least in the minds of some. In volume terms France in tandem with Italy still produces more wine than any other country with between 7 to 8 million bottles a year. More importantly for wine lovers is the fact that France undoubtedly still produces more fine wine than any other country. It is perhaps a sign of the changing world of wine that today I celebrated Bastille Day with Patricia tasting a number of wines only one of which was French.

Patricia Amira hosts her show on the South Africa based TV channel M-Net, which is broadcast all over Africa. Patricia is a sort of Kenyan equivalent of Oprah and her show’s magazine format covers just about anything you care to mention. I was asked along with two wine friends to participate in a ‘snob-free’ introduction to wine. It was all very relaxed and informal as we guided Patricia and hopefully her viewers through a flight of whites and reds.

That wine was a subject on the Patricia Show reflects the fact it is gaining in popularity among aspiring Africans. Wine consumption is definitely going up as the sales graph with its sharply rising line shows. The doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of annual wine sales needs to be kept in context a little as obviously the base level of consumption is extremely low. Outside of South Africa where annual consumption per person is a round 7 litres, the equivalent consumption levels for the rest of Africa where wine is consumed is probably, and unsurprisingly, well below 1 litre. What I think is true, and this is only based on anecdotal observations, is that wine is the drink that has captured the aspirations of the Kenyan middle classes, or, at least middle class women. Kenyan (wealthy) men and for that matter many African businessmen while not adverse to quality wine brands, in my experience love their (malt) whisky, but that is another story.

The Patricia Show is recorded out in the western suburbs of Nairobi and admittedly I am no expert in these things, but to this novice it all appeared akin to organised chaos. The guest line-up for the show included an inspirational story of a teenager overcoming the traumas of paralysis, the ‘light hearted’ wine tasting segment, and on to the shows star guest a gentlemen in a flowing caftan complete with a fez-like hat who predicts the future.

For our small spot we were asked to identify a proffered flight of wines. I am generally uncomfortable with what is a bit of a party trick, guessing the wine. For some reason folk are unreasonably impressed that after a swirl and a sniff you are able to say, “Oh yes, of course it’s a Gewürtstraminer”. I tell myself that this piece tittle-tattle is all necessary and part of the wider objective of highlighting the pleasures of wine. The studio crew, that is the thirty-odd people in the studio that make the Patricia Show happen, were all excited and often the floor manager had to call for “QUIET”. At the end of the recording of the wine segment the rush to secure the leftovers was quite a sight. I hope the recording of the rest of the show retained a steady focus.