Does your favourite wine also reveal how you vote?

When I was president of my left-leaning student’s union, I was always keen to keep it quiet that my favourite tipple of choice was champagne – albeit snapped up from the supermarket when Heidsieck Monopole Blue top was on offer in the early noughties at £9.99 a bottle. Wine tastes, much like political preferences, are influenced by a multitude of factors: cultural background, socioeconomic status, geographic location – but the same could be said of our politics and the complex interplay of personal experiences, influences and ideologies. A famous “cult” producer in the natural wine movement, Jean-François Ganevat, created a huge upset when he and his sister Anne sold their estate to Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky in September 2021. The Ganevats have been growing wine since the 17th century – but, like so many French farming families, they were facing an uncertain future due to inheritance laws. But it still leaves liberal-leaning consumers with a quandary – everything is not as it seems, even if it’s a wine that’s espousing unadulterated purity.