The Youth of Poor Taste

Perhaps we don’t know what they know, but from the sidelines it seems the younger generation is intent on stripping the world of life’s, well, finer and more cultured pleasures. Tastes and fashions change, of course, but viewed through the eyes of someone slightly grey and distinguishedly seasoned, the whole affair leaves a rather sour aftertaste.

My own brush with the youth-led abolition of things long considered enjoyable concerns wine. Fact is, global wine consumption is at its lowest level in 60 years, and the blame is squarely pinned on the under-30s, who have failed to inherit their wise parents’ enthusiastic thirst for the grape. Of course, it could be a case of said parents setting a poor example, but I put all this down to the nerdish rebelliousness of today’s youth.

France, a nation as inseparable from wine as Arabia is from camel milk and air-raid sirens, offers the starkest example of this drought in wine consumption. In 1960, the average French citizen enjoyed 100 litres of wine a year. Today that figure hovers just above 30 litres per person, a dramatic collapse that has dealt a bruising blow to France’s reputation as the World’s Wine Nation, considering that 30 litres is roughly the average annual brandy intake within the borders of Worcester and Rawsonville.

And it’s not just France. Wine is losing seemingly favour everywhere, largely because of younger tastes. The youth regard wine as “old-fashioned”, “not flavourful enough” and — heaven forbid — “uncool, not really suited to pretty Instagram and TikTok posts… right?”

Further grim tidings from the French republic of good taste come in the form of that country’s younger generation now turning its nose up at France’s other gastronomic masterpiece: cheese. Or rather, French cheese. Those ripe, aromatic, full-throttle beauties that overpower the nostrils, seduce the palate and bless the stomach with a sensation of post-coital bliss. (Oh, and apparently the youth are also bonking less these days, but this another story.)

French cheese. Think of the musty blue-cheese jewel that is Roquefort, made from sheep’s milk and left to mould in dark caves filled with mystery and ancient wonder; the earthy Munster and its flavour of freshly dewed compost heap; or the gloriously runny Epoisses, whose brazen, riotous aroma fogs up your spectacles before assaulting your mouth, leaving viciously primal aromatic traces on your breath for three days. All these wonders and glories are being eschewed by the youth that appear to now know no pleasure.

Fewer than 10% of French young adults — aged 18 to 24 — eat traditional French cheeses. Instead, they gorge on Mozzarella and Emmental: cardboardy cheeses lacking in taste, charm and character, but which melt obediently onto pizzas and toasted sandwiches. Cheese is now reduced to convenience food, something to nibble while waiting for the next tattoo appointment, or to wolf down alongside an almond-milk cappuccino before Pilates class. And, of course, the visual of a stringy cord of melted Mozzarella strung mid-air between pizza and its influencer eater makes for great Instagram, the latter being the current determiner of good taste.

Another possible reason for French youngsters rejecting mature, ancient, characterful cheeses is the belief that “right-wing” people are supposedly more inclined to enjoy old-school cheeses than their liberal, left-leaning counterparts. A wedge of blue Roquefort, therefore, apparently signals that the eater thereof is a neo-Nazi or Donald Trump acolyte and, sacré bleu!, which boy or girl in their spring years wants to be associated with this? Pass the processed cheddar slice and skip the tune to Bono or Taylor Swift.

Personally, I accept that every sport comes with its injuries. And I’m perfectly willing to risk my reputation for the pleasure of a proper hunk of ripe, runny and pungently aromatic French cheese washed down with a crisp Sancerre white wine.

In fact, make that a double.