Food and Drink

Years ago, an entrepreneurial friend had the idea of marketing ketchup with a catch, a jaunty political declaration. I say ‘many years ago’, and to give you a sense of just how ancient this ancient history is, contemplate that the ketchup was called ‘W’ and the ‘W’ stood for the personage that the followers of William Jefferson Clinton mean to disparage when they removed that letter from the computer keyboards in White House and other government offices just before the W in question — George W. Bush — took office.

Some people, out at a nice restaurant, are shy about sending a bottle of wine back when there is something wrong with it. They shouldn’t be. Wine, as the vintners like to tell you when everything is going as it should, is a living thing. Like all living things, it is subject to a variety of unfortunate vicissitudes. We’ve probably all encountered ‘corked’ wine at one point or another — that taint caused by a smidgen of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) or 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA), which can be transferred from or through a cork. But wine is susceptible to other liabilities as well. One is the same liability that, sooner or later, affects us all: age.

The weight of history — a seemingly infinite vista of incident — hangs heavy in the Languedoc in the South of France. The region (also called Occitania) is the place where people said ‘oc’ rather than ‘oui’ for ‘yes’ — langue d’oc instead of langue d’oïl. Gauls, Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Moors, Cathars: one by one they came, they pillaged or prayed, slaughtered or were slaughtered. A plaque in the Carcassonne cathedral reminds us that only yesterday St Dominic (1170-1221) preached there during Lent. A lot of nasty things have happened in Languedoc over the centuries. Perhaps that is one reason the people are so cheerful now. The area is also the biggest wine-producing region in France, which also contributes to the quota of cheerfulness.

I used to be terrified of homemade alcoholic drinks. Someone would bring out the elderflower champagne at a picnic, and I’d wave it away: ‘I’d love to. But I’m driving...’ Bottles of homemade cabernet would be pressed on me with irrepressible warmth at Christmas time; I’d accept them with a lying smile on my lips and an inward resolution to boil the contents for seven hours with sugar, oranges and cinnamon sticks and fob it off on guests as mulled wine. And for my narrow-minded ways I now repent. As I must, because with maturity comes the realization that, as Solzhenitsyn said, there is no us and them. The line dividing good from evil, the poised socialite from the homemade-liquor inflictor, cuts through the heart of every man.

I’m trying to cut down on energy drinks. I know, that’s a rather pathetic undertaking compared to going sober or quitting smoking. But it is hard. I wade through mental fog, yawning yawns that rival a buffalo’s bellow. Switch to coffee? Yes, I could. But hot drinks are not the same. I like the cold, refreshing quality — and the ring pull’s crack. Perhaps I will give up giving up and just embrace addiction. It’s a small one anyway. That is my defense, but also my confession. We can understand, if not excuse, people endangering their health for the sake of alcohol or cigarettes — but for a caffeinated soft drink? Or perhaps there are darker forces at play here.

If I am going to talk about summer wines, I am going to have to introduce you to Gaius Plinius Secundus, known to us as Pliny the Elder. Pliny was a busy chap. Army commander and admiral in the Roman navy. Gourmand. Pal of the emperor Vespasian. Pliny did not have writer’s block. He published the first 10 books of his sprawling Historia Naturalis in 77 AD. Despite its title, the book is about a lot more than natural history. Really, it is a sort of proto-encyclopedia. Pliny hadn’t finished revising the rest when he went to investigate the strange things that were happening down at Mount Vesuvius in 79. He died in the conflagration. The chap we know as Pliny the Younger — the elder Pliny’s nephew and heir — was with him.

We all have our daily rituals. We’re told they’re a necessity to live a healthier, happier, more productive life. Some pride themselves on an early start, a morning jog, or a half hour spent journaling in their wellness notebook. Not a morning person, I’d be nervous to jot down — and read back — my view of the world at 7 a.m., so I’ve never taken up the fad. But I reserve no judgment for those who do. Why then, is there such judgment about my routine, which every day involves fueling up on decaffeinated coffee? To be fair and objective, I’m guilty of nothing more than ‘fitting in’. Coffee ranks as one of the most popular drinks worldwide, with more than 400 billion cups consumed every year.

When Jayson Pahlmeyer left the practice of law in the mid-1980s in order to devote himself to winemaking, he said, ‘All I wanted to do was to create my own “California Mouton” — a rich, powerful Napa Valley Bordeaux blend, a wine that would drop wine lovers to their knees.”’ He did it in 1986, the first vintage of his Proprietary Red, a luscious Cabernet blend that won plaudits throughout the world of wine. Pahlmeyer’s Merlot and Chardonnay have been similarly decorated, and I may return to them in a future column. For now, I want to focus on the Proprietary Red.