Football clubs bottle it - badly

10 April 2012

Football is still a game of two halves but no longer a sport of several pints. Lager used to be the obligatory tipple for fans and footballers but times change.

The players are too rich to get their kicks from cheap booze and so go for lethal cocktails, most of which have vodka in them somewhere.

Meanwhile, the game has attracted new, middle-class fans, who expect a half-decent meal before a match instead of a dodgy pie at half-time and who would rather sip wine than neck lager.

Many clubs now market their own wines. So, as a service to our readers and in a spirit of consumer research - and certainly not so that we could have a night out getting hammered - Standard Sport decided to sample what the London clubs offer.

It seemed like a good idea at the time but, just as you would not go to a vintners to buy a pair of football boots, so it was probably unreasonable to expect to get drinkable wines from football clubs.

Things started off well. We found an appropriate venue - Teatro in Shaftesbury Avenue; a bar, restaurant and private club where mine host is former footballer Lee Chapman. Although it is a frighteningly trendy place, fans of the clubs for whom Lee played pop in to oggle him. As he played for more clubs than Gazza has been thrown out of, business is brisk.

Another good move in planning our wine tasting was to invite Andrew Jefford, the Evening Standard's wine writer. He was the only one who knew what he was talking about. The panel of other tasters (a motley collection of Standard Sport staff and other strays) were the sort of people who, when buying wine, do what Arsene Wenger will do this summer - go for something which looks good in the box.

Jefford was also the only taster who remembered to spit the stuff out between glasses. So the panel's powers of discerning a poor wine from an atrocious wine waned progressively, although by the end of the evening we were all the best mates in the whole world.

The wines we collected were supplied by the marketing departments at the clubs concerned. They are either on sale in club shops, available in club restaurants or both. Some clubs produce more than one wine of each colour, but we could only face one red and one white.

Arsenal said they did not have a wine (we thought their favourite wine was "we haven't won anything this season") and Spurs said they were fazing theirs out and didn't want us to publicise it.

We were delighted to oblige. They haven't had a good year since 1961 anyway. Fulham do not sell a club wine but manager Jean Tigana's family have their own vineyard and the wine is sold at Harrods, and we thought we'd have some of that.

So things were all going nicely until we started quaffing the stuff. Only Tigana's white and the Millwall red were any good at all. The rest were only fit for casseroles or lighting barbecues.

And, although several English clubs have had great success buying French footballers, it is a big mistake for them to buy French wine. Jefford said: "I simply do not understand why many clubs are actually choosing French vin de table for their club wine. French table wine is usually dire in quality. If they want to source wine from France, they need to spend more. France is a lousy source of cheap wine. If they want to buy really cheap wine, then they need to consider other sources of supply. Spain would probably be best of all but Eastern Europe and Australia are also worth considering."

As you might have guessed, Chelsea's wine was the most expensive at £12.95. Tigana's white at £8.50 was the cheapest and all the rest were more than nine quid.

We didn't tell Jefford the prices, so as not to prejudice his decisions, but he said: "If they're much over £2.99 then the gullible fans are being ripped off something rotten. Even £3.99 would be a disgrace.

"Why do the fans buy them? These wines are so bad that one could almost say that any wine from any major supermarket would be a nicer drink. Most of the labels are utterly naff, too. So why pay more for a wine which tastes horrible and looks naff?"

How the wines scored

The Red Army

MILLWALL

Club Red (Georges Duboeuf) £9.50

Jefford's comments: Bright, juicy-looking number. The nose has some fresh plum. This smells far better than the white from Millwall and tastes infinitely better, too. Really quite good: juicy, fresh, lots of vivid plums. Great quaffing red; serve it slightly chilled. Well done.

Score: 81/100

Panel comment: Could go off any minute.

CHARLTON

The Valley (Vin de Table, Foncalieu) £9.95

Jefford's comments: Paler than Millwall's. It has the horrific smell of decaying carpets, plus a ghastly combination of sharp acidity and desperate attempts to pump some balance into it with a little sweetness. Awful. Left an aftertaste of floor cleaner.

Score: 18/100

Panel comment: Whoever is responsible should be flogged to West Ham (or just flogged).

CRYSTAL PALACE

La Regency (Regency Vin de Table) £9.50

Jefford's comments: Slightly deeper colour than Charlton and nothing horrible in the nose. Faint whiff of toffee. It's just a basic wine. Not horrible, but not anything: alcohol is its only virtue. Passes the swallow test, but not more. Acidity lingers afterwards but nothing else.

Score: 25/100

Panel comment: We're not swigging any more.

CHELSEA

Chelsea Village Red (Vin de Pays d'Oc 1999), £12.95

Jefford's comments:Looks the part. Very neutral nose with a touch of fruit. If they turned up the volume, the nose could be plummy and nice. Perfectly passable party wine with coarse plummy fruit. Balance is soft; not too harsh. But nothing much to like about it, either.

Score: 58/100

Panel comment: A bit hairy and very sour. But enough about the chairman.

WEST HAM

Merlot Vin de Pays d'Oc, £9.95

Jefford's comments: Beginning to brown a bit, suggesting it's considering retirement. Not a lot of scents; just a touch of grain, touch of blackberry, touch of car boot. Passable with a bit of blackberry fruit and quite soft balance. I could enjoy a glass (if there was nothing else on offer).

Score: 64/100

Panel comment: Like my dreams, it fades and dies.

Come On You Whites

MILLWALL

Club White (Vin de Table Blanc, Duboeuf), £9.50

Jefford's comments: Pale gold in colour with clean, neutral aromas which are faintly chemical. Tastes crisp and clean, but empty. No fruit; just that gentle hint of industrial chemicals. Technical balance (acidity, alcohol) is okay, but this wine is not much fun. Any supermarket £3.99 white would be an improvement.

Score: 23/100

Panel comment: No one liked it (but it didn't care).

CHARLTON

The Valley (Vin de Table Blanc, Foncalieu), £9.95

Jefford's comments: Looks very bright; a super-filtered pale gold. Smells clean with a faint hint of banana. Rather acidic, harsh taste and where's the banana gone? It seems to have changed into cooking apple. But at least there's fruit of some sort.

Score: 35/100

Panel comment: Crap wine, no fans.

CRYSTAL PALACE

La Regency (Regency Vin de Table Duprat), £9.50

Jefford's comments: This was corked (and the use of a better quality cork might have prevented that). Underneath the cork flavour, this was spectacularly bad. A professional buyer who bought this for a wine selection would be fired. As a Palace fan, I'm gutted.

Score: 5/100

Panel comment: Unlike the team, there is no danger of this one going down.

CHELSEA

Chelsea Village White (Vin de Pays d'Oc 1999, Coop at Cebezan), £12.95

Jefford's comments: Has a very clean, highly filtered look to it with faint sweet scents, like a distant memory of hay. Not a great wine, but definitely the best white so far, with some gentle tangerine and lemon-cream to it. Acidity fresh, not too harsh. I could last 45 minutes with this.

Score: 65/100

Panel comment: No wonder they sing: "One man went to Moet"

WEST HAM

Chardonnay Vin de Pays d'Oc (sourced from Moreau), £9.95

Jefford's comments: Deepest gold so far but has a jelly-bean or confectionary scent. Tastes like a classic cheap Chardonnay. Obvious, full, fat, with a bit of oak chip to add to the mouthfeel. Rather cloying afterwards, but at least there's something to enjoy for a while.

Score: 63/100

Panel comment: We'd rather have a claret.

FULHAM

Domaine La Dona Tigana 99 Cassis, £8.50

Jefford's comments: Full, bright gold with interesting, teasing aromas of aniseed and fennel. Far more intense flavours than the other wines. Weighty, lots of oily lemon and torn coriander leaf. Lovely full-on wine for a sunlit Mediterranean lunch. Long finish. Unusual and good.

Score: 87/100

Panel comment: Could start a Cottage industry.

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Football clubs bottle it - badly

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How the wines scored

The Red Army

Come On You Whites