Fine wine vs the Führer bunker

There’s been a lot of talk about Hitler and the Nazis recently and fine wine shouldn’t be left out.

“Mein Führer, Lafite has increased its price by 32% per bottle ex-négociant.”

There’s been a lot of frothing and outrage of late at parallels drawn between Israel and the European Union and history’s favourite bogeymen, the Nazis and their chief of lunatic evil – Adolf Hitler.

Luckily, this column is not about to get political and make any kind of comparisons of that sort.

Do you remember the craze for spoofs of the scene from the 2004 film Downfall? With Hitler in the bunker reacting badly to the news that his acolytes were deserting him and his generals unable or outright refusing to execute anymore of his suicidal and pointless orders.

Like all crazes it quickly became overused by people who think they’re being funny rather than those who actually are and so the whole thing became rather – unfunny, frankly.

They still pop up from time to time and while some are no doubt very good it’s doubtful many people watch them anymore because it’s a tired format.

Which is something of a shame because there were a few wine-related examples. One particularly good wine one was about Robert Parker giving 100-points to a Napa Cabernet (remind yourself here) and it could have been rather amusing to do one satirising reactions to recent en primeur pricing.

Hitler (or rather the actor playing him, Bruno Ganz) going absolutely ape and screaming blue murder about the latest release price of Palmer and how its £400 more expensive than the next cheapest vintage.

I stress, ‘could’, in this instance and very strongly. Namely because, as mentioned above, the craze has passed.

And, sadly, because en primeur often feels a little beyond such satire at times.