Oz Clarke

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety nine, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My castaway this week is a wine expert. He's slurped, sipped, and spat his way through countless television programmes as his effervescent taste buds have taken him on a voyage of discovery through the world that he loves. His pleasure is ours too. His knowledge and panache have made him one of this country's most popular guides to the mysteries of wine. It might not have been. After Oxford he became an actor and appeared in some of the West End's most famous musicals. It was only when a publishing friend asked him to write a wine guide that the career which made him famous began. Since then he's won most of the major wine writing awards on both sides of the Atlantic. It's a talent which came entirely naturally. I remember tastes and smells like a pinprick, he says. He is Oz Clarke. Was your palate always so sharp then, Oz, or is it something you've cultivated?

Oz Clarke1:21

I think it was always pretty sharp. I mean I remember being a a nuisance to my father, complaining about the quality of fish and chips, and I had a particular favourite shop and I always wanted to go to that particular favourite shop because the cod was fresher or because the potatoes were newer.

Presenter1:35

So it all stretches to food as well, this is a very good thing.

Oz Clarke1:37

Oh, yes. Oh, I think the whole point about uh taste is that that wine we have to borrow language for. There's no wi uh l wine language, and consequently you have to draw in.

Oz Clarke1:47

flavors from every part of life, and it's taste, it's food, it's also emotions, and it's also the way the wind blows on the cliff tops, and and the way you feel sick and sad about some love affair that didn't work, and all those kind of things all get back onto my taste book.

Presenter2:04

Well, there you go. I mean, that's that's what people have criticised, I suppose, isn't it? This fruit salad description of wines, you know, these gorgeous, juicy, round face that make you think of X, Y, Z.

Oz Clarke2:09

enough wines you know these gorgeous

Presenter2:14

But that's your attempt to demystify it, I suppose?

Oz Clarke2:16

It is, and luckily, modern wine can be demystified. Old-fashioned wine couldn't be. Most old-fashioned wine was absolutely disgusting anyway. And the kind of plonk that we used to grow up on, I mean, how we ever got the stuff down our throat is beyond me. And there was a tiny little, little chink of greatness at the top of the wine pyramid. But now, because of the New World people, I mean, particularly the Australians, but also the Chileans and the Argentines, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, Californians, whoever, they've actually gone out and found the essence, the absolute essence of the grape flavour. And of course, different grape varieties are just same as different apples. They all taste different.

Presenter2:49

Article

Presenter2:52

Now we know all about the grapes. In fact, I'm told some people believe Chardonnay is an area of Australia.

Oz Clarke2:57

They think it's a village in Australia, yeah.

Presenter3:00

But let me go back to your palette for a second because I want to talk to you about New Worlds later on.

Presenter3:04

That's what you use, presumably, in this blind tasting. Somehow those pinpricks have to resonate. You have to remember them, don't you?

Oz Clarke3:11

I remember them. People say, you know, oh, a thing might taste, say, of blackcurrants. Cabernet Sauvignon often does. But to me, it's not just blackcurrants. It's the first time I smelt my mother making blackcurrant jam. It's her blackcurrant jam. And if it's the toast, a Chardonnay often has a lovely toasty buttery thing. Well, it's I remember, you know, a day when I was lying in bed on a Sunday morning and someone brought me toast dripping with butter and some fresh coffee. And you say, that's it. That is the absolute taste of a lovely oaky Chardonnay. It's that moment.

Presenter3:46

Tell me about your first record.

Oz Clarke3:47

Oh, my first record goes way back. It's when I was a choir boy at Canterbury, and we used to sing the Matthew Passion every Easter.

Oz Clarke3:56

And

Oz Clarke3:58

I'd like, I think, the final, final chorus, which of course is full of emotion and exhaustion and satisfaction. But to me of course I was just thinking, We've finished, I'm going to have something to eat and drink.

Speaker 24:39

You said so.

Presenter5:09

The final chorus from Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, In Tears of Grief, Dear Lord, we leave thee, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, with the Brandenburg consort conducted by Stephen Clearbury.

Presenter5:19

And memories, Oz Clarke, of being a boy chorister at King's Canterbury, which is where you became Oz, not your real name, Oz.

Oz Clarke5:26

No, my real name is Owen. I was called Oz because I used to go in and bat for the the cricket team at about halfway down a five or six or something. And normally against you know, we were choir boys, and the local schools thought we were terrible, terrible Nancy boys wandering around in cassocks and surpluses all the time. I used to bowl short at us and knock us all out. I mean, half the team was in hospital most weekends. And I thought, well, if you bowl at my head, I'm going to whack you to the boundary. And and the boys, because the Australians were touring England at the time, and they were swiping the English cricket team off the face of the earth as they normally did and do, sadly, they started calling me Ozzy because I played like an Australian.

Presenter6:05

It's just stuck.

Oz Clarke6:06

It absolutely stuck like an impet.

Presenter6:09

Because you'd been at the Cathedral Choir School before that, so obviously, you know, this you can see it was in your tea leaves that you were going to end up singing in musicals or something. Um were you the chap who always got the solos?

Oz Clarke6:21

No, I wasn't. Stephen Varka, who was a wonderful baritone now, he got most of the solos. I mean,

Presenter6:26

Well you were called the callous of the choir.

Oz Clarke6:28

I see it, they used to c call me the Maria Callus of the choir. And that's because basically every time they give me a piece of talice or gibbons or something, I would approach it as I was in La Scala, and you could see all the old choir boys and the and the the lay clerks singing, Dear oh dear, this boy will never learn

Presenter6:43

Not how it's supposed to be in the choir. You were also part of a singing ensemble in Oxford as well, weren't you, when you got there?

Oz Clarke6:49

Yeah, I mean, singing has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. And Upper Oxford was one brilliant.

Oz Clarke6:55

Group of singers called the Scola Cantorum. And it was a tremendous thrill to actually get into that group. It's only about 10 or 12 people.

Presenter7:02

What sort of stuff did you see?

Oz Clarke7:03

Oh, we used to sing all the the Tudor stuff, and we'd we'd we'd sing the Talis and the Gibbons and the Tavern and the Wilkes and the Bird.

Presenter7:11

And in fact, you you read theology as well as psychology, I think, at Oxford and this this very ecclesiastical kind of background, your schooling was all around the cathedral and so on, it's obviously been a very important part and was a very important part of your formative years.

Oz Clarke7:14

Yeah, yeah.

Oz Clarke7:26

Yes, it was. Again, I think I was I was surrounded by the church f from the year dot. Um and I was fascinated by it. Not

Oz Clarke7:35

not sort of caught by the faith of it.

Oz Clarke7:38

And I'm not sure yet, I'm caught by the faith of it.

Presenter7:41

Do you still go to church regularly?

Oz Clarke7:42

Not regularly. I do go. I fret about it, I think about it, but if you said Do I absolutely believe in a God now?

Oz Clarke7:53

I think I'm in the same old agnostic state as I ever was.

Presenter7:57

Record number two.

Oz Clarke7:58

Ah, well this is Elvis. I missed Elvis really at uh at school. I was I mean, we didn't have a television at home, I was at a choir school. I never knew that this fantastic tide was actually building up and about to burst over the popular music world. And I think I want an Elvis Presley piece, an early one.

Oz Clarke8:20

Because he was that bridge between white music and black music, which had to happen.

Speaker 28:28

We are

Oz Clarke8:30

As a man in New Orleans plays a rock and rolls a It all men

Speaker 28:34

With a green big solar, he lays it down beat like a ton of cola He goes by the name of King Griole, You know it's gone, gone, gone Chopping like catfish on the pole You know it's gone, gone, gone Out of the chicken King Griol

Presenter8:53

Elvis Presley and King Creole. Was there any sign um Oz in that childhood of of the man of wine? Did you develop any early liking for it?

Oz Clarke9:02

Yes, I'm afraid I did. My first taste of wine ever was my mother's Damson wine, and we were out at um St Nietzs in Cambridgeshire, and by the side of a river, a weir, and my brother was drowning in the weir. Um my father was desperately trying to save him, my mother was having hysterics.

Oz Clarke9:19

Well, there was a perfectly good bottle of Dans and wine there. I drank it. I was three. Were you ill? He drank was I ill. I mean, my brother actually survived it. I nearly didn't.

Presenter9:22

We will.

Presenter9:27

So your father was a doctor, your mother was a nurse, it was a pretty conventional middle class household, and obviously there would have been pressure on you to get a proper job at some point, but for some reason you were always set against this, weren't you?

Oz Clarke9:40

So again,

Oz Clarke9:41

Um I remember seeing in the local newspaper I can't be more than about eight years old that someone had retired from the local gravel pits, aged sixty five, and he had been given a gold watch after working for some like fifty years in the gravel pits. To this day I can remember his his shiny, bald head and his sort of Sunday best suit and the brave fa smile on his face. And even then I thought there were tears behind that smile. And I said to my father, What does retiring mean? You know it means he said, Well, you've got to you know, you get old and you have to stop working, and you get given a gold watch. And I said, What, for the your whole life?

Oz Clarke10:19

And my father said, Yeah, that's that's how it is. You get to sixty five, you've got to retire And I said, Well, Daddy, I'm I'm never gonna retire if if uh if I can help it And he said, Well, you

Oz Clarke10:29

Better never have a job then.

Presenter10:30

There's a story too about your crying at the age of thirteen because you didn't want to grow up.

Oz Clarke10:35

I didn't want to grow up. I mean, I I still don't. I mean, I see absolutely no benefit in being grown up whatsoever.

Presenter10:41

But why would you weep, I wonder?

Oz Clarke10:43

I think I thought that childhood was

Oz Clarke10:46

The best possible thing that could be.

Presenter10:48

How would you know, then?

Oz Clarke10:50

Because it was so good.

Oz Clarke10:53

And if it was that good, I didn't want to take the the step into being a thirteen year old, a teenager, going to a senior school, becoming this adult type person who had to have a job and all these kind of things.

Presenter11:05

So there was a kind of fear in this

Oz Clarke11:06

There's a fear. And I suspect there probably still is. I I um

Oz Clarke11:11

I still like to to lead as you know an irresponsible life. I still like to

Presenter11:16

But you don't, do you?

Oz Clarke11:19

You may

Presenter11:19

You may not have done a nine to five.

Oz Clarke11:20

Carefree.

Presenter11:21

Either as an actor or as a as a as a wine buff, but the fact is, you you know, you work jolly hard, you're reasonably conventional.

Oz Clarke11:28

I work extremely hard, but I don't think I'm conventional. You're trying to make me sound as though I'm the local bank manager, and I will not have it, Sue. I will not have it. Record number three.

Oz Clarke11:39

Oh well, record number three, this is UC Björling.

Oz Clarke11:43

And

Oz Clarke11:45

L'Aboem, which is, I think, one of the great great operas and Jussie Björling is this Swede who somehow yet manages to understand all the Latin temperamentality and passion, and yet puts a sort of Nordic control on it. Like a Swede with olive oil and garlic and chianti running through his veins.

Presenter12:06

You make him sound like a bottle of wine.

Speaker 212:16

I lost our commands!

Speaker 212:21

Remember

Presenter12:51

You see Bjorling as Rodolfo singing in Act One of Puccini's Labo M. with the R C A Victor Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Presenter12:59

Um many Oxford colleges, of course, asked Clark, have excellent cellars. Did you get to taste any?

Oz Clarke13:06

I went to the just about the poorest college in Oxford, um, Pembroke.

Presenter13:11

Lot of punt, said Pembroke.

Oz Clarke13:11

Got a f

Oz Clarke13:12

We had lots of punts, and we had the most famous port in the world. And we had this thing called Quinte de Noval, nineteen thirty one, which is worth about a thousand pounds a bottle.

Presenter13:22

Get to taste it?

Oz Clarke13:23

Well, I did. I remember coming to a cocktail party after playing some cricket. I turned up my cricket whites and this chap said, Here, here's your drink.

Oz Clarke13:31

And and I had was given this half bottle of port and I said, What is it? She said, Uh it was Kintered Noval nineteen thirty one And uh everyone who came into the room would have been given a half bottle of Kintered Noval nineteen thirty one. I mean, uh we could have built an entire new library on the amount of Noval thirty one we drank that day. In fact, I think we did build an uh a new library on the rest of the Noval.

Presenter13:51

So the acting and the wine drinking um and whatever else took further shape at Oxford. But for some reason you had difficulty getting into both the Wine and Food Society and OWDS, the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

Oz Clarke14:06

Absolutely did.

Oz Clarke14:07

The Wine and Food Society was elective.

Oz Clarke14:09

And if you hadn't gone to sort of Eton, Harrow, or Winchester, you didn't get in.

Presenter14:14

This must have been a very long time ago, Oz.

Oz Clarke14:16

I'll tell you what happened. I was singing in a wonderful opera called Agamemnon, the libretto written by Tony Holden of all people, the royal biographer. And I managed, because of being a singer, to get onto the stage in the opera club, because I mean anybody who could stand upright could get into the opera club stuff. And I died well. And they needed someone who died well in Act One of Agamemnon. So I went on and sort of dashed about the place, covered myself in blood, died, and went off and had a shower. Well, luckily, my great friend Charles Metcalfe, he died well as well, and he also died in Act One. And so, you know, in the showers he said, we were all rubbing off all this sort of stage blood every day. And I was saying to Charles, oh gosh, you know, I'd love to try and get interested in wine and I dunno, I I went to the wrong school and I I can't get into the wine and food society and it's terrible and Charles said oh well bad luck old chap, bad luck and we went off and died the next night and we were rubbing all the muck off us and he said um oh by the way he said you remember the wine and food society now and I said how?

Oz Clarke15:14

Is hello, um I'm the secretary.

Oz Clarke15:17

And within half a term we said this isn't what modern modern wine or modern life is all about. So the next term he became president and he made me the secretary and we immediately changed the constitution. We said it's not going to be elective anymore. And we also started blind tasting. And we beat Cambridge that year and we then beat Cambridge for about ten years in a row.

Presenter15:36

And you were into acting as well, as I say. You were apparently a very successful Satobe Belch, which is fairly appropriate.

Oz Clarke15:43

And I

Presenter15:43

As a result, after all this, you were signed up by Northampton Rep.

Oz Clarke15:48

That Toby Belch was important because it was about the only time I ever managed to get into the mainstream of Oxford theatre. I was running a thing with a woman, a fantastic director called Fania Williams. We started Oxford Free Theatre because neither of us could get into the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Same old thing, we didn't know anybody. And then we did the Oxford Experimental Theatre Group, all those sorts of things. And I finally, Patrick Garland came up to direct a 12th night, and I went along to audition. And God bless Patrick, he gave me the part of Toby Belch when he could have given it to lots of other people. And he did an inspired 12th night in the Worcester College Gardens.

Presenter16:27

So you were launched. Tell me about record number four.

Oz Clarke16:30

It is

Oz Clarke16:32

Certainly for me one of the great moments in my life, in one of the great pieces of musical theatre ever written.

Oz Clarke16:38

Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim. And for me I managed to get into the West End show ah as an understudy. I mean Denis Quillie was doing the main role. And one Saturday afternoon Dennis wasn't feeling too well, and I thought, ah well, I hope he survives the weekend, you know, because I haven't had a run through yet.

Oz Clarke16:57

And I heard over the Tannoy

Oz Clarke16:59

This evening the part of Sweeney Todd will be played by Oz Clark.

Oz Clarke17:03

And Sheila Hancock, who was fantastic, Mrs. Lovett, she said, she said, Hello, do you want to run through some stuff? I said, Yes, please, yes. We did that.

Oz Clarke17:11

And she said, Oh, we're going to have some fun to night.

Speaker 217:15

There was a

Speaker 217:17

And his wife.

Speaker 217:21

And she was beautiful.

Speaker 217:26

A foolish barber and his wife.

Speaker 217:31

She was his reason and his life.

Speaker 217:36

And she was beautiful, and she was bird.

Presenter17:44

Shit.

Presenter17:46

There is a Barber and His Wife from Stephen Sondymes musical thriller Sweeney Todd, who was played there by Len Carriew from the original cast recording of the Harold Prince production.

Presenter17:57

So you made the leap into the musical theatre, Oz. You did Sweeney Todd, as you said. You did Ned Sherrin's Mitford Girls. You played Perron in the Innovita, the the the Rice Lloyd Webber.

Oz Clarke18:03

Does

Oz Clarke18:04

Peron in the in a v

Presenter18:09

But that you were obviously getting disenchanted with it all, because then suddenly you have this chance meeting with the publisher and you decide to turn to wine. Why were you disenchanted? Were you not making it as big as you wanted to?

Presenter18:23

Why did you want to give it up?

Oz Clarke18:23

It goes back again to a long, long time back to childhood again.

Oz Clarke18:29

Um I remember saying to myself, when I decided I had to have some career of some sort that I would change my job every five years.

Oz Clarke18:37

And I'd done five years as an actor, and I'd done about five years as a singer by the time I came to to do Peron.

Presenter18:42

You've done more than five years in wine.

Oz Clarke18:44

Ah, but I've done different things, Sue. Um I've done television and I've done other strange sorts of shows and all that kind of stuff. But I still try I still try to change. I think I lost my way. And I think I began to realize the reason I went into the theater was not to sit on a stage doing the same thing every night.

Presenter18:51

But I still try.

Presenter19:01

But how did you know you knew enough about wine to be able to write a book about it, or did you just suddenly go on a crash course?

Oz Clarke19:07

No, I'd never went on a crash course except unless enthusiasm is called a crash course. We had an English wine tasting team, it's brilliant, and I had to actually ask for time off from Sheffield to go to a wine tasting. Can you imagine the director saying, You want time off from rehearsal to go to a wine tasting? Anyway, I got in and we then tasted against the French, and the French thought they would walk all over us. Well, we won four of the first five places and the sixth place. We walloped the French to such an extent that the front page of Le Figaro had a black border right round it as though the president had died. And from that moment on, of course, I was the actor who wine tastes. So they sort of knew I was a wine taster. And amazingly, I mean

Oz Clarke19:47

Total chance. I was going out playing Peron, I'd done the matinee, and I went round the corner to get myself a a coffee.

Oz Clarke19:55

As I walked out I saw this

Oz Clarke19:57

figure walking in front of me. I thought, good gracious, that's

Oz Clarke20:00

That's Webbo. And Webbo was Adrian Webster, who was a a friend of mine from Oxford. He'd been an actor at Oxford. And I said, Hey, Webbo, what are you doing? and he said, Well, I'm a publisher. Oh, I'm a very important publisher. And he said, What are you doing? I said, Well, I'm governing Argentina eight times a week, you know, twice on Saturdays, getting a bit bored with it.

Oz Clarke20:18

And he said, You're the wine chap as well, aren't you? And I said, Yeah, he said

Presenter20:21

Yeah.

Oz Clarke20:22

I want to do a wine book. Do you want to write it?

Presenter20:25

Record number five.

Oz Clarke20:26

Um

Oz Clarke20:28

I've got to go back to the Mitford girls. It was Patrick Garland directing again got a wonderful bunch of girls together Pat Hodge, Colette Gleeson, Kay Soper, Liz Robertson, Julia Sutton.

Oz Clarke20:39

Pat Michael, and I played all the men. I played Uncle Favre, I played Unc you know, Unc Favre, Uncle Matthew, Peter Rodd, Esmond Romilly any Hitler, I think I played Hitler at one time. It was the happiest show I ever did.

Speaker 220:55

Thanks for the memory.

Oz Clarke20:57

A memory.

Speaker 220:59

Of sentimental verse, Nothing in my purse, And chuckled when the preacher said, For better or for worse, How lovely it was

Presenter21:20

Patricia Hodge, Lucy Fenwick, Julia Sutton, Patricia Michael, Collett Gleason and Gay Soper singing Thanks for the Memory from the original London cast production of The Mitford Girls, and that was recorded in 1981. But slowly, slowly then, in those early 80s, as you were moving across into wine, when did you decide to become the champion of New World wines?

Oz Clarke21:41

When I tasted them.

Oz Clarke21:43

Simple as that.

Oz Clarke21:44

It was actually when I was um with the Royal Shakespeare Company. We were doing a Heda Garbler World Tour.

Oz Clarke21:50

And our first stop you know, it was wonderful for a young actor, my our first stop from, you know, a week at Richmond, and then two days later you're in Melbourne in Australia. And they just said to me, Okay, you go and buy the wine and I thought, well, I'll have to buy the usual rubbish I get uh from from the corner shop in all around the sort of provincial towns of England. Not a bit of it. You go in and buy the cheapest wine in Australia, the cheapest wine as I then discovered in places like California, and it's gorgeous, it's full of fruit, it's full of ripeness. I remember coming back to England and saying, I can't believe this, I've discovered these amazing wines from Australia. Where are they in the shops? Not one.

Presenter22:28

Critics would say, though, that they're very obvious. They're sort of designer wise, because the you know, the temperature is always there, the the sun is always hot, you always know what they're going to be like. There aren't those wonderful, subtle variations in the vintages.

Oz Clarke22:39

Well, I'd say fantastic, because subtle variations in vintages normally means that one is considerably worse than the other. The point about these wines is that they're sunshine in a bottle. They burst out at you, and they're not subtle. But we've now got thirty million wine drinkers in this country. We'd never have thirty million wine drinkers if we were still sipping sort of Bordeaux and burgundy through our through our sort of upturned noses.

Presenter23:02

But you're not denying there's some kind of m mystery, there's something just much more subtle about French wine.

Oz Clarke23:07

I am denying it. I'm saying that some French wine is absolutely fantastic. I'm saying that an awful lot of French wine is living on past glories. And I'm saying that if you want subtlety, you can get it from Australia and California and South Africa and these places. And I get uh kicked a lot by the the wine buffs because they sort of say oh, that's so obvious, you know, that wine, there's no challenge in that wine. And I say, most people don't want a challenge in a wine. Most people want a nice drink.

Presenter23:33

Next piece of music.

Oz Clarke23:35

Ah, well.

Oz Clarke23:36

I mean, I sound like an Englishman.

Oz Clarke23:39

I may even look like an Englishman. I sometimes behave like an Englishman, but my heart is Irish. My mother is Irish. My father had bits of Irish in him too, and I've got a a powerful streak of of the Celt running through me.

Speaker 223:54

She stepped away from me, and she moved through the fair

Speaker 224:04

And fondly I watched her move here and move there And then she turned homeward with one star away.

Presenter24:24

John Langstaff singing She Moved Through the Fair. We've come, as you say, Oz a long way in our wine drinking habits, but it's it's taken us a long time. It's the last fifteen years of the twentieth century to catch up with our fellow Europeans.

Presenter24:37

In order to do it, what do you say to those people who say it's been too much dumbed down? Everybody's against the snobbishness of it, as you say, but these signs it says great with Turkey or Great With Spam, I think they're saying this year in the Monty Python anniversary year.

Oz Clarke24:51

Shadow Chanda.

Presenter24:52

It's a

Oz Clarke24:53

Ha ha ha.

Presenter24:54

It's a bit of an insult to the intelligence, isn't it?

Oz Clarke24:56

Well, I think that's a passing phase, this hi uh idea of sort of great with spam and just

Presenter25:00

Charasmatas.

Oz Clarke25:01

Yeah, Shigazmatas is I prefer a bit. The point is that I'm not a a great one for some of these silly labels, um but they are an attempt to draw in to democratize the world of wine. And certainly that's what uh Gilly and I have tried to do on on food and drink. And you know, when Gilly goes into these amazing ideas about things tasting like the

Presenter25:21

Ugly fruit.

Oz Clarke25:22

Oh, well done, Zoo. The wheelbarrow full of ugly fruit. That was years ago. Everyone still remembers that. But what we said.

Presenter25:26

That was

Presenter25:30

Well you remember it, but does it mean very much?

Oz Clarke25:32

No, it doesn't. But what it does mean is, I can't believe I've just heard that girl saying that. I'd better go out and see what I think. And I think what.

Presenter25:39

That's been done now. I mean, I suppose what I'm asking you is, isn't it time we now brained up again on wine?

Oz Clarke25:45

Okay. Um I think you find actually we are braining up a bit of wine. Certainly um in food and drink, I find myself now giving out more facts about who made the wine, what the country is like that uh makes the wine, what this particular grape variety is trying to do.

Presenter25:59

So you believe that people not only buy all those books about it, but they actually read it, they understand the difference between the Chardonnay and the Sauvignon Blanc grape or, you know, the the the the chiraz?

Oz Clarke26:09

I don't think they necessarily buy all the books. You need to know half a dozen grape varieties, all of which taste tremendously different. Just like, you know, if you've got a Granny Smith, a French Golden Delicious, oh no, well not a French Golden Delicious, anything but a French Golden Delicious, a Cox's orange Pippin or something, everyone in the country can tell the difference between those three apples. Well, the grape varieties are just as different as those three apples are. And if you think of a Chardonnay, say, that soft round sort of dry white wine, and a Sauvignon Blanc, that sharper, snappier style, and you see the labels with that name on them, you know what you're going to get. And then you look at Australia's a nice warm place, New Zealand's a quite cold place, so the warm flavours of an Australian Chardonnay are totally different from the cool, leaner flavours of a New Zealand Sauvignon. We've only learnt four words so far, and already we're able to make a completely valid judgment about the different styles of wine.

Presenter26:10

So

Presenter27:05

But we know Chardonnay is white. I'm told that the supermarkets find it such a good marketing ploy, the the name, the word Chardonnay, that they'd like a red one too.

Oz Clarke27:13

Yes, they used to want a red blue nun. I think they they actually got a sort of thing called red monk going at one time. But you're right, actually, Chardonnay is almost like just saying, Well, it's dry white wine, and Cabernet, oh, well, it's dry red wine. And I think I've noticed in the last year or so, and this is where someone like Argentina is very, very important, I've noticed people becoming more adventurous and starting to say, Well, we've done Cabernet and Chardonnay, what's next? But of course, here am I saying, Well, try an Argentine Bonarda, wonderful grape, by the way, under four quid a bottle, fantastic flavours, red. Or an Argentine Barbera, or an Argentine, I dunno, Tempranillo, or some of these other things. They're all out there. I'm saying, please try these. And several million people might say, Okay, I will. But there's still twenty million people who haven't tried Chardonnay. And the old old thing of when you're absolutely sick and totally tired and never want to hear of anything ever, ever again, it's just catching on.

Presenter28:08

Echo number seven.

Oz Clarke28:10

Um, it's about drinking. It's about three in the morning in a strange town, in a strange bar, with strange people. This song is called The Piano Has Been Drinking.

Speaker 228:22

Dano has been drinking.

Speaker 228:27

My nectar is a spring

Oz Clarke28:27

I'm not

Speaker 228:33

Combo went back to New York.

Speaker 228:38

Tudebox says sata league.

Speaker 228:42

And the carpet needs a haircut

Speaker 228:48

And the spotlight looks like a prison.

Presenter28:52

Tom waits and the piano has been drinking. Okay, ask Christmas Booze, what should we drink with the turkey?

Oz Clarke28:59

Well, after listening to Tom Waits, I should think

Presenter29:02

Nothing.

Oz Clarke29:03

Horlicks and mineral water. I think the point about Christmas turkey is you've got to drink something that that you're happy with. Don't suddenly go mad and think I'm going to spend twenty or thirty pounds or something on a bottle of wine that you've never heard of before because people say it's better. Yeah.

Presenter29:19

Do a test run, you mean?

Oz Clarke29:21

I wouldn't even do a test on it. What I would do is say, do I like Chilean Cabernets or something? Or do I like Australian Chardonnays? And stick with that for Christmas. Now, if you want to trade up a bit, by all means, trade up a bit, but don't trade out into something entirely different. I would say in red wines, South America really is the place to go. And all the major supermarkets have got an Argentine bonarda for under £4 a bottle. It is the juiciest, most rombustuous, most joyful red wine you could possibly get.

Presenter29:51

You won't need any cranberry sauce.

Oz Clarke29:52

You won't need any cram resource at all to splash a bit of this on the side of the plate.

Presenter29:56

And if you want to trade up a bit.

Oz Clarke29:58

Trade up. I'd go to Chile. Put an extra quid or so on. Four pound ninety nine, that sort of area. There's some beautiful Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots. Those are slightly more serious grapes.

Presenter30:08

You like to keep it cheap, don't you?

Oz Clarke30:10

Well, I Sue, invite me round to your place. I'll bring my five-pounder bottle and uh you bring out your ten-pounder bottle and we'll have a battle. You're saying there's no need.

Presenter30:17

There's no need to pay to it.

Oz Clarke30:18

There's no need. Chili at the moment for five pounds. Okay, go to six pounds if you want to. But there's some wonderful, ripe flavours and quite serious from chili as well.

Presenter30:27

What should we drink with the pudding?

Oz Clarke30:29

Huh.

Oz Clarke30:30

What I would drink with pudding

Oz Clarke30:32

Um one or two of the supermarkets have got some muscard.

Oz Clarke30:36

from Samos, Greek muscat from Samos. It's only two or three quid for a half bottle. Or if you really want to go down market but have a fantastic flavour, Muscatel de Valencia is only about three pounds something for a whole bottle.

Presenter30:49

But I want to go up market.

Oz Clarke30:51

All right, if you if you want to go up market with a Christmas pudding

Presenter30:55

Nice tokai, huh?

Oz Clarke30:57

Tokai fifteen pounds a bottle, or, slightly less than that, Australian liqueur muskard. You if you haven't tried it, Sue, you will your l your knees will shake after your first mouthful.

Presenter31:10

And on your desert island, Oscar, if there was only one bottle not to be used to send a message afterwards, what would it be? One bottle of wine only?

Oz Clarke31:21

One bottle I tell you what one bottle would be.

Oz Clarke31:24

If I had to have a desert island drink

Oz Clarke31:27

I would take fresh

Oz Clarke31:29

Country milk from the farm. I think it is the best drink in the world.

Presenter31:33

Last record.

Oz Clarke31:35

It's an emotional last record.

Oz Clarke31:38

It's I think one of the greatest hymns ever written.

Oz Clarke31:42

My father had it at his funeral.

Oz Clarke31:45

I'm sure my mum will have it at hers, and I bet I'll have it at mine too.

Oz Clarke31:49

And that's cumronda.

Oz Clarke31:51

And I have bread of heaven, and I would like it sung by.

Oz Clarke31:56

Every coal miner and every rugby player and every butcher and baker and candlestick maker in Wales.

Presenter32:59

Cumrontha, Bread of Heaven, and that was recorded in nineteen fifty three, where else but at Cardiff Arms Park.

Presenter33:05

Oz, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Oz Clarke33:10

Thanks for the memory.

Presenter33:12

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Oz Clarke33:15

I think I would take the most inspirational book about eating or drinking I think there's ever been, and that's Elizabeth Davids's French Provincial Cookery.

Oz Clarke33:28

She taught me, and I have always tried to follow it in my books.

Oz Clarke33:31

Put yourself into the book. Tell the stories about your life. Tell the tell the the emotions and the experiences which brought you to where you are. And she does that with with her cooking books absolutely brilliantly. And French provincial cookery. I don't even need to eat. I'll just read about it.

Presenter33:50

And your luxury.

Oz Clarke33:54

My memory.

Oz Clarke33:56

Wouldn't want to listen.

Presenter33:59

Ask Clark, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Oz Clarke34:02

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 334:11

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.