Riesling on the Rise

But being British, our palate is sharpest when it comes to the semiotics of wine: whenever an Englishman opens his mouth to glug back a glass, he's saying something about himself. A drinker of French wine is signalling “I'm sophisticated, have a lover stashed away, and I'm so insouciant that I shrug off the loss of €5 billion as mere bagatelle”; a drinker of zippy Australian wines is saying “I like wine but I'm no girly-man, indeed, I'm going to change a tyre straight after lunch”; and dinner-party drinkers of Argentinian numbers are, between the chat about house prices, letting you know: