People who rule the wine world

The most respected of all wine consumer magazines, Decanter, has just published its annual list of the top 50 'movers and shakers' in the world of wine. And there are some rather surprising results.

The top three (in descending order) are: the chairman of Constellation Brands, Richard Sands; The Wine Advocate's famed critic, Robert Parker; and the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Marianne Fischer Bold. Nicolas Sarkozy comes in at number nine which, I imagine, would irritate him enormously, despite being a teetotaller.

Robert Parker should actually be number one on this list. It is

he who reigns as the world's top wine writer and critic by some margin. The Bordeaux 2008 en primeur campaign, for instance, was decidedly lacklustre until Parker wrote that it was actually a very good vintage.

Suddenly everything changed. Prices went up (mid-recession) and the wines sold out almost instantly in a buzz of excitement - something an EU commissioner could never achieve in a hundred years.

Constellation Brands sits at the top of the list because it is the major supplier of branded wines (as the name implies) to the world's supermarkets. Serious wine drinkers, however, tend to avoid their wines as most are mass-produced, bad value (thanks to high advertising costs) and lacking that extra dimension that small growers can give.

There are several other interesting entries. There's