Drink

Not everything in the entire world is going to hell in a half-track. A few days ago, I tasted some South African wines. Although there are many reasons for a gloomy appraisal of South Africa’s prospects, wine is not among them. The industry is benefitting from new investment, encouraged by easier export markets made possible by political change. Even under the previous dispensation, there were excellent vine-yards in the Cape, the product of a fruitful racial compact. When the Huguenot refugees arrived at Table Bay, they brought their oenophile lore and rapidly assimilated with the Dutch settlers who were already establishing themselves. The name Franschhoek survives, as do many French surnames, although the language largely disappeared.

At the end of last century, when there were grounds for optimism about Russia’s future, an increasingly popular word expressed this: stabilnost – stability. Russians would roll it round their mouths as a Texan would use ‘goddam’, or an English after-dinner drinker of an earlier vintage might evoke his enjoyment of the beverage by letting the word ‘port’ linger across his palate. I do not suppose that there is much talk of stabilnost in Moscow these days, and we could do with some of it here. Still, there are ways of banishing dull care, if only for a few hours, and drinking fine claret is one of them. The other evening, I was at a tasting of Branaire-Ducru and my first conclusion was that I had not drunk it nearly often enough. It is a St Julien.

Wine-making can have a tragic dimension, and rarely more so than with Italian Pinot Nero: that is, Pinot Noir. It is often made amid blood-soaked landscapes, where tragedy regularly arose out of pretensions to grandeur. If you wish to read an overview of modern Italian history in order to understand why, the place to start is David Gilmour’s The Pursuit of Italy. Despite the quality of the prose, mention Sir David’s book even to thoughtful Italians, and you might be surprised by the lack of enthusiasm. He applies a revisionist scalpel to national myths, without benefit of anaesthetic.

A few days ago, when everything looked black, a small group of us were consoling ourselves over a couple of good bottles. ‘In politics,’ said I, ‘things are never as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope.’ ‘I entirely agree,’ replied one friend. ‘At the moment, things are not as bad as I fear. They are worse.’ That was before Bojo lost his mojo. Has his curse now finally been lifted from the Conservative party? It would be foolish to offer a swift and complacent ‘yes’. Among the political figures Boris resembles, we must include not only Alcibiades, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump. There is also Rasputin. Can we be certain that Mr Johnson has been given the full fatal dosage: icy Neva, silver bullet, poisoned cake, stake through the heart?

‘Golden’ is often used to describe the hue of some wines in the glass. But there is another resemblance. Gold is a beautiful metal as well as a store of value. Wine, covetable for its taste, can also be a store of value, at least for many years. So it inevitably attracts the attention of investors, the best of whom want to deploy expertise partly in order to finance their drinking. The late Roger Scruton, no less, once wrote a piece explaining how it was possible to drink Château Lafite free. You estimate your future needs and then buy twice the quantity. Within a few years, you should be able to sell half your bottles for the cost of the whole. I never asked him whether he had tried this out. But there is a firm based in London which is run on Scrutonian lines.

There have been few more momentous weeks in British history, or indeed in world history. This commentator must plead guilty. To draw on George Bush Jr, I mis-underestimated Liz Truss and appear to have made the same mistake about Ukraine. That said, we should all be relieved when the war is over on favourable terms, and tactical nukes have remained an item in Russian military doctrine, without becoming part of military practice. Another mis-underestimation has now been corrected, one hopes permanently. Though I was never guilty, the former Prince of Wales had not received the respect that was his due. That is not true of King Charles III. Throughout the United Kingdom, his first coronation has already taken place, in his loyal subjects’ hearts. The Queen is dead.

August may not be the cruellest month but it is often the most dangerous one. Now that it is over, and rosé is giving way to grouse, we can console ourselves. There has not been a world war. We merely face a number of middle--ranking crises. Over fortifying bottles, I was chatting about such matters with friends who had known the late Peter Inge, a dominating figure even by field marshal standards. It was said that in his company, brigadiers’ coffee cups would rattle with tension. I once taxed him with the contrast between his reputation as a martinet’s martinet and his geniality in private life.

Even in recent heat, the English summer can be magical. As long as there is shade, a pool and a steady supply of cooling wine, there is so much to enjoy. Trees, flowers, songbirds, butterflies: dolce far niente works here too. But thinking can be the snake which insinuates itself into Eden. Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler books are always excellent train reading and the latest was no exception, even if the principal character always puts one in mind of Turner’s supposed reply to someone who said that they had never seen a sunset like the one which he had painted. ‘But don’t you wish you could?’ It is hard to believe that there are many actual policemen like Simon Serrailler – more’s the pity. There are other reasons for pity.

Imagine a camel train, crossing the great desert. The remaining water is rancid; the beasts’ humps are shrunken. Death looms. Then suddenly, there is the sound of a fountain plashing and the scent of sherbet. Old Abdullah, who has done the journey often, as he has been reminding everyone for ten days and making his companions increasingly homicidal, is vindicated. The oasis is at hand. Although Londoners, afflicted by heat, may feel affinity with those sons of the desert, our conditions are not so dire. For a start, there are many more oases, in the form of bars or clubs. That brings us to Pimm’s, that admirable method of rehydration. According to the sources, Mr Pimm invented the drink to accompany oysters. Eh?

In the battle of ideas, it is sometimes necessary to make a tactical withdrawal. That is now the case over climate change. This should not be confused with a full retreat. But in the circumstances, those who insist on the need for lifestyle changes have a point, at least when it comes to wine. Some time ago, I propounded a dictum. Rosé should only be drunk south of Lyon. One could start quite early – 10.30 perhaps, opening the first bottle while brushing away the final crumbs of croissant. Apart from a very few serious wines, it would not matter if the stuff were cooled to ice-lolly temperature. But in this heat, there is no shame in quaffing rosé in England. Other wines can be problematic. Freedom and whisky gang thegither.

One could get used to this. I come from seafaring stock, albeit distant. ‘Anderson’ suggests Viking antecedents, especially as my forebears came from the Shetland Islands. Yet there must have been something wrong with the first Anderson. Other Vikings reached Normandy, Sicily, even Byzantium. At the very least, they found the odd monastery to plunder. Later, their Norman descendants compensated for cultural destruction with cultural creation. But to endure the rigours of crossing from Norway and then disembark on Shetland? Was my remote ancestor seasick, or mutinous, or did he rape the cabin boy? We will never know. A millennium or so later, life at sea was rather different. We were on a yacht, cruising between Sardinia and Corsica.