A joke
Q: What's an Essex Girl's favourite wine?
A: Take me to Lakeside!
An rubbish, unoriginal and nicked joke which I'm glad to say, I didn't invent. Now, they say that 10% of country own 90% of the wealth. IT could also be argued that that 10% also drinks 90% of the wine consumed. On a good day, Friends aor Brookside can pull an audience of about 10% of the country but sadly I'm guessing that it's a different 10%. So, in order for this show to appeal to you you need to be a) Posh, b) Bored or c) See b. Do you see?
Wine expert Matthew Jukes takes two couples to France in order to play games based around the concept of wine. This involves looking at some lovely French vineyards and watching people drink wine. owever, Jilly Goolden isn't involved, so bad luck for any Jilly Goolden fans out there.
There are five challenges, each team do two challenges each with the team with the most points going through to the final challenge where they might win... some wine. So let's take at a look at the challenges, shall we? Yes, lets!
This happened to be a Champagne special, incidentally.
1- Spot the ........ (sorry, I can't quite remember the name of the wine)
One team tastes a wine (with help from important French Wine Bloke) and then they go over to a table which has three steps on it and four glasses of wine. The team have to guess which of the similar wines is the correct one. The bottom step is labelled 'No', the team have to reject two of the glasses which aren't correct. The middle one was 'Maybe' which they'll leave one glass on in the end and the final one is marked 'Yes' for the wine they think is correct. Matthew then marks their guess out of ten, each score represented by a particular bottle of wine so if they scored an '10' they'd win a nice and expensive wine. A nice touch. Sadly, and this is a fault with most of the show, it's VERY passive.
2- How to be a Champagne Waiter
Now it's the other team's turn to earn some points. One of them must serve some champagne, but they can't just pour it out, they've got to serve it CORRECTLY. Afterwards, Matthew critiques the contestant saying 'yes, you did that right' or 'no, that could've been better' a bit like a driving examiner does in fact.
3- Champagne True or False
Set in a cellar of a Champagne manufacturer, the first team are asked five true or false questions about champagne.
4- Match Food and Wine
A little bit like the Generation Game, one contestant from the second team tastes some food and then says how it tastes to their partner who has four wines on the three 'Yes', 'Maybe' and 'No' steps. The food taster doesn't taste the wine and vice-versa.
At the end of these rounds, the team with the most marks goes on to the final challenge...
5- The Final Challenge
On a table are four wines and they will have been told to find a certain type. If they can find it they win a £1000 crate of it - good stuff. If they fail however, they still go home with a Wine Hunt Wine Kit (as did the losers). Incidentally, the losers are still here, they are allowed to taste the rogue wines.
And that's it really. To be honest, it's not hugely exciting, it is just wine tasting after all and this leads to it's biggest downfall - what fun is there to be had in seeing other people drink wine? At least in The Great Antiques Hunt you can have a reasonable guess at home but with wine where taste and smell is everything, it has as much use as an extremely blunt pencil: No point at all. Why don't they get the Interceptor to scream a bit, nick one of the glasses and then run off again? Why don't they get Richard O Brien to come on, say 'Now you really should have won that game, there was no excuse'? Why Chatsworth, why?
BUT. But, but, but. Despite the fact that we should be bored stiff watching it the atmosphere at least is quite pleasant and the scenery is undoubtably lovely and if you like wine or want to learn about it, Matthew is exteremly knowledgeable about this sort of thing and he shows it. So, not all bad but it has quite a limited appeal. Jolly good then.
VERDICT: 5/10 We could have had a new Crystal Maze... we got this. But at least it isn't bad enough to turn you to drink.
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