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1. the times | Monday February 15 2021 1GM 3
News
One of Britain’s oldest paperboys is to
continue his round after being sent an
electricbiketohelptospeedupthetime
it takes him.
George Bailey, 80, who delivers
newspapers to villagers around Head-
corninKent,saidthatthegifthadgiven
him “a new lease of life”. He suggested
that he might even still be in the job
when he reaches 90.
Baileyhadbeenconsideringstepping
down as the routine was becoming
for its bottles last year, its third consec-
utive annual drop. Les Echos, the finan-
cialdaily,reportedonthenewattitudes.
“The obsession is to relaunch sales,”
it said, adding that traditional advertis-
ing was being replaced by social media
and influencers. In Burgundy, the other
leading French region, a similar picture
has emerged. Maison Albert Bichot, a
leading house since 1831, has appointed
a digital marketing manager, Lucas
Przybyla. He said that influencers used
“their feelings rather than their know-
ledge, contrary to professionals. That is
preciselywhatpleasestheiraudience.It
doesn’t matter if they think they have
detected an aroma of peach rather than
apricot in their glass.”
Bounie agreed. “Neophytes can fol-
lowthembecausetheirlanguageisvery
simple and that helps to popularise
wine,” she said. Traditional critics often
used terms that “can make a glass of
wine seem very complicated”.
Ducancel, 33, said: “I consider myself
to be an enlightened amateur who will
talk about wine in an accessible way
rather than an expert.” She added that
her Instagram account served not only
to generate income but also to attract
people to the women-only wine club
that she launched two years ago.
Bounie said that her clients, which
range from individual châteaux to pro-
fessional bodies, were prepared to pay
influencers anything between a few
hundred and few thousand euros to
photograph themselves with glasses
and bottles of their wine.
The fee depends in part on the num-
ber of followers. Wine Gini, who has
110,000, is among the most popular, far
ahead of Simonagsommelier with
41,000, Rouge aux Lèvres with 24,000,
WinePoetrywith7,700andLesVinsdu
Capitaine with 5,500.
But Bounie said that vintners also
paid attention to the engagement rate
— the likelihood that followers would
buy the wines being recommended.
T
he best
description
of wine
tasting I
have read is
by Sylvain Pitiot and
Jean-Charles Servant,
the French authors.
In The Wines of
Burgundy they say
that a wine taster
cannot improvise any
more than a literary
critic can. They write:
“Both of them must
have tasted
everything, read
everything and
internalise the
characteristics of
wines like those of
books, carefully
classifying them in
their memories so
that they are capable
of an impartial and
well-founded
judgment.”
They add that the
“great difficulty for
beginners is that they
have no ‘base’ wine to
serve as a standard
against which to
measure others”.
If Pitiot and Servant
were writing in the
1990s after the birth
of social media, they
were certainly writing
before the creation of
Instagram. These days
a photograph and a
pithy tasting note is
enough to garner a
thousand likes from a
audience with an
insatiable thirst. The
age of the influencer
is with us and the
wine world, usually so
slow to adopt change,
has embraced it.
Like assessing any
wine, I like to keep an
open mind. It’s one
thing mastering social
media, quite another
tasting through 800
barrel samples of
youthful Burgundy to
find those special few
bottles. That takes
skill and judgment.
The Wines of
Burgundy is now in its
13th edition, rather
proving the point that
there will always be
an audience for
trusted expertise.
Will Lyons is a wine
writer for The Times
and Sunday Times
Will Lyons
Comment
ROUGE AUX LEVRES; WINE GINI
George Bailey takes his
new Raleigh on a run
At 80, George gets an extra buzz out of delivering papers
arduousforhim.Hisdailyroutearound
a loop of two and a half miles required
him to get up at 6am and was taking
him about an hour.
The British companies Raleigh and
Evans Cycles stepped in and offered
him a Raleigh Motus Crossbar E-Bike,
which sells for about £1,900. The
machine will provide much of the work
of pedalling and reach speeds of up to
15.5mph.
“I’m truly thrilled with my new bike,”
Bailey said. “After celebrating my 80th
birthday, I was seriously considering
whether it was time to hang up my
boots and retire from the paper round.
Knowing I can continue doing what I
love, with a little help from modern
technology, is fantastic, especially on a
Raleigh, a brand I’ve always admired.”
David Greenwood, the head of mar-
keting at Evans Cycles, said: “Modern
e-bikes open up so many new opportu-
nities for people of all ages. Offering a
littleelectricalassistancewhenneeded,
they increase enjoyment and ultimate-
ly encourage riders to ride more often.
“We recognised what the daily rou-
tine of riding meant to
George and so were
more than happy to
help him continue to
enjoy the ride.”
Michelle Jakeway,
from Raleigh,
added: “When we
heardGeorge’sstory,
we felt compelled to
give him a little boost.”
Bailey began doing a
paper round at the age of
11. Holding down the
roleasapensionerhas
made him one of the
oldest known paper
boys in Britain.
In between, he was
a stockbroker at Uni-
gate for nearly ten
years and worked on a
local golf course. He
celebrated his 80th birth-
day last month.
Charlotte Wace
When Margot Ducancel began asking
French wine makers if they wanted to
feature on her social media account a
few years ago, she was met with quizzi-
cal gazes.
“They didn’t understand what it was
all about,” Ducancel said. “There was
quite a lot of hostility.” Times have
changed, however. The vineyard own-
ers are now keen to be promoted by
“wineinfluencers”abletoreachbeyond
the crusty old world of connoisseurs.
Thenewwaveofvintagebloggersisa
colourful group with diverse back-
grounds. Georgia Panagopoulou, 31,
a Greek influencer who goes by the
name of Wine Gini and describes
herself as a digital marketer.
Ducancel, who was an art ex-
pert, is also an established blog-
ger, writing under the name of
Rouge aux Lèvres, Red on
the Lips, a play on lip-
stick. Valentin Cotton,
28, a French concert
pianist, compiles an
account called
Wine Poetry.
Even a policeman
has joined in the
fun as Laurent
Charrière, 47,
posts under the
name Les Vins
du Capitaine or
The Captain’s
Georgia
Panagopoulou
writes as Wine
Gini while
Margot
Ducancel,
right, is Rouge
aux Lèvres
and Simona
Geri, below,
works as
Simona the
Winesetter
Wine is under
the influence
of influencers
That most staid and
elitist of industries has
at last embraced the
stars of social media,
Adam Sage writes
Wines. Simona Geri is an Italian who
calls herself Simona the Winesetter or
Simonagsommelier.
Many featured last week in an article
in the magazine La Revue du Vin de
France, the wine-lovers’ bible, which
explained to its readers — not all of
whomwerefamiliarwiththeconceptof
influencers—thatontheinternet,pop-
ular bloggers and Instagrammers were
paid to promote products.
Laura Bounie, the head of press rela-
tions at Sowine, the wine PR agency,
said that the wine sector had taken a
while to get used to social media.
“It is quite conservative,” she said.
“But when they saw the rise of influen-
cers in other areas, they realised they
had to use them as well.”
Some purists are unhappy with the
evolution, preferring the days when
powerful critics, such as
Robert Parker, the Amer-
ican nicknamed the
“pope of wine”, were
able to make or break
vintners’ reputations.
Stéphane Dere-
noncourt, a consult-
ant known as the
rock-star of wine, told
La Tribune, the finan-
cial website: “Before-
hand there was a
smallgroupofexperts
who talked about
wine. That has explod-
ed. With social media
and influencers,
opinions are being
imposed themselves
and they are not all
pertinent.”
Bordeaux, how-
ever, reported a five
per cent fall in demand