Italian PM has a pop at British wine...

[Pavilionaire]

What a kvnt!

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sent his Swedish counterpart 24 bottles of Italian wine on Tuesday, saying it was to help him recover from having to drink British wine at a European Union summit last week.

Prime Minister Tony Blair hosted the summit in Brussels and offered Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson and his other guests Welsh white wine and English red wine.

"(Persson) was so aghast at the English wines at the summit that I promised to send him some of our wines," Berlusconi told a group of foreign journalists, adding that he had dispatched 24 bottles of cabernet sauvignon.

"Up to 24 bottles is fine. More than that is corruption," Berlusconi joked.

The Italian leader has not always been so considerate about Scandinavian taste buds.

He once famously derided Finnish cooking as the Italian city of Parma battled with Helsinki for the honour of hosting a new EU food safety authority.

"Parma is synonymous with good cuisine. The Finns don't even know what prosciutto is," he told an EU summit in December 2001.

 

[Dave the OAP]

not surprised.

English wine is distilled vinegar

 

[The Keeper]

Now that is out of order!

I would understand if the Italian PM has a wine at British pop!

 

[CHAPPERS]

I love the Italians. Yeah, your food and drink is good but you can't run your country for shit you corrupt Pope fearing wankers.

Fancy joining a war? Which side do you want to join?

What's that? Start on one side then when you're f***ed switch? Righto.

Cock gobbblers.

 

[Hampden Park]

vintage stuff

 

[Pavilionaire]

So let me get this right - we've just given up a f***-off multi-million pound rebate to the EU...and they repay us by taking the piss out of our wine.

I would LOVE to see Prescott deck that Wop cvnt...

 

[Icy Gull]

not surprised.

English wine is distilled vinegar

There is a recently opened Vineyard in Ferring at the bottom of Highdown near Roundstone on the A259 , haven't plucked up the courage to try it yet. I just know it's gonna be shit

 

[Simster]

The vinyard at Boxhill is good stuff IMHO.

Meanwhile, the fact that the leaders of tin pot banana republics such as France and Italy choose to publicly laugh at us is all just a sign of to what extent we OWN them these days. A better economy, the Olympic games, and so on. We're the winners.

 

[Bozza]

The generalisation that all British wine is shit is a myth and belongs sometime back in the 70s.

 

[Richard Whiteley]

I can't believe anyone would get annoyed by someone having a joke at the expense of British wine. What the f*** is British Wine? On second thoughts don't bother, I can't be arsed to find out

 

[Icy Gull]

The generalisation that all British wine is shit is a myth and belongs sometime back in the 70s.

So which ones are you recommending?

 

[Dave the OAP]

The generalisation that all British wine is shit is a myth and belongs sometime back in the 70s.

In Your Humble Opinion?

IMHO its all horrible.

M&S Do a Cape Wine...£8.99 reduced to £3.99 a bottle..Chardonnay...Lovelly!!!

i agree with Simster, french and Italian wine has been taken over by "new world" wine and is overprived pretentious muck.

 

[Pavilionaire]

It's a f***ing lack of respect, that's what it is, having a go at your host...

 

[Gwylan]

It's English wine...not British wine (there's an arcance distinction based on whether it's made at the vinyard or put together from everyone else's leftovers).

English red wine is really crap but there are some good white wines and the sparking stuff is top-notch.

Get some Nyetimber or Breaky Bottom instead of champers since this year and see if you can tell the difference.

 

[Dave the OAP]

This is also really nice

M&S

 

[Simster]

It's a f***ing lack of respect, that's what it is, having a go at your host...

Correct. But we should just laugh at them in return. Afterall, we don't pretend to be good at wines.

I'm sure Italians all over the UK are embarrassed by his comments. Mr Berlusconi, why don't you come back when you've sorted out your shit farming, mass unemployment, crappy, dying car industry (propped up by the state to the tune of £3bn pa), and organised crime. You've done a great job.

 

[Eggmundo]

Ok we can't do classic wine, that's life,....I'd like to see the bloody Itias knock up a decent Ale.

Bomb 'em.

NOW

 

[Bozza]

In Your Humble Opinion?

IMHO its all horrible.

It is all about opinion since we are talking taste. But people that know far more about good wine than you and I rate some English wine. We'll never grow it in the quantity of other more famous wine parts of the world, old and new, but that has little bearing on quality.

Dave - please tell me the English wines you have had, just this past year will do.

 

[surrey jim]

The vinyard at Boxhill is good stuff IMHO.

Denbys in Boxhill does tours, well worth going on and a nice few samples at the end, Just make sure you dont drive back after

 

[Bozza]

So which ones are you recommending?

You could do a lot worse than the Ridgeview Sparkling:

http://www.ridgeview.co.uk/htmls/Press Release Yarden July05 Mardi.htm

and it's from Sussex too.