Glastonbury wine review

by on July 8, 2011 in Random

The rain lashed down harder but we didn’t care. Why? Because we’d found a wine bar in the trenches of Glastonbury – a little patch of heaven in the mud and chaos of Worthy Farm.

As the tunes pumped out. grown men hugged and danced to the tune of Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (‘come up and see me, make me smiiii-iiiiiiiile’), knocking back mediocre Merlot in paper coffee cups. Did it matter what the wine tasted like? That Miles of Sideways might not have approved? That it gushed from giant taps and was available in handy take-away plastic bottles? That you smelled more fresh green grass in the pit of the Pyramid main stage than in the pissy sauvignon? Not a bit.

I was possibly just relieved to get served – my first venture to the beer bar that day sans identification ended in failure and being told to ‘rack off’.

The Wine Bar wasn’t the only vinous highlight of the weekend. I’ve always been reluctant to go to music festivals, mainly because of cesspit toilets and rammed bar facilities. One day of beer at Glasto and I’d had enough. So I hit my groove with rosé wine.

This is why rosé is such a bloody good idea at a festival:

  • For the volume of liquid and alcohol you’re taking on board, visits to the toilets and bars are dramatically reduced, leaving you to enjoy the very reason for being there, i.e. the music. Or the girls, drugs, fights, VIP treatment, protests, whatever reason you have for being there
  • Order a double and cram that pint glass so full of ice that you can barely taste that sickly, sweet, mass-produced tang
  • Sip away responsibly while you watch the sun set and Kaiser Chiefs rock out their Angry Mob. You should see out a typical 50-minute set comfortably with one drink
  • Shit rosé is bound to be a fair match for food of similar standard.

Life is too short to wade through shit and mud to refuel, when you could be in the thick of the Coldplay crowd and getting a slap off the Rooney entourage.

Which takes me to one final last point – why are we subjected to crap wine at festivals? There seems to be a move towards higher quality food, why not wine? Or does it matter?

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8 Comments ,
  • http://twitter.com/smallsips Small Sips

    Better wine always matters. For boutique festivals which are more experiential, even more so. The cost of getting in there may be more of an issue, a cost which arguably just the big blands can bear.

  • http://www.pauljkiernan.wordpress.com Grapes of Sloth

    They thought you were underage? I remember when I couldn’t get served for that reason too – only faintly though as it was probably ten years ago that it last happened to me :(

    Yeah, went to the Marquee in Cork last summer and same story, crap wine. The pints were actually lovely but they’re very heavy to be carting around and, as you say, necessitate too many trips to the bog.

  • http://mygrapeescape.ie Eamon

    I think you’ve nailed it, Lar. With the price of a quarter bottle at 4 british pounds, the price of something actually decent would be too much for most of us.

  • http://mygrapeescape.ie Eamon

    I hadn’t shaved for weeks and all!

    The best wine I had over the festival was a ’98 Dow’s Port from a Volvic bottle – was fortunate enough to bump into a former Decanter colleague!

  • http://mygrapeescape.ie Eamon

    I’d recommend it – give it a go! You might need something stronger to get through Amanda Brunker though.

  • Orla

    Any tips on wine to drink at oxegen? Should i ditch the vodski for the rose?!

  • Andrew Barrow

    I detest drinking wine out of anything other than glass; frankly if the stuff they are serving is so shite I wouldn’t bother with it myself. Can’t you just take something decent in with you??

  • yanhuaz