Wine

Is it safe to visit the continent? On the one hand, abroad is likely to be less crowded this August than in normal years. As for the virus, if one miscalculated, could that lead to lockdown in France profonde, or dolce far niente Tuscany? Hardly the worst outcome. Or would it mean cancelled flights, hours in airports, and then house arrest back in London? As government ministers do not appear to know the answer, how should the rest of us decide? While considering the options, I have consoled myself by remembering previous trips, stimulated by some recent tastings. When it comes to claret, I am very much on the left — of the Gironde, that is. Cabernet sauvignon stimulates the intellect as well as making demands on the palate.

In one respect, there has been a reassertion of normality, though this is nothing to do with the virus. Although the recovery was almost sabotaged by young Mr Archer’s bêtise, the problem long antedates Covid-19. But it now seems that once again, the West Indians are a formidable Test side. This is wonderful news, for world cricket has not been the same without them. Cricket is a game of paradoxes, a symphony of beauty and brutality: a cross between a vicarage tea party and Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon. Facing a fighting bull or the fearsome West Indian fast bowlers of yesteryear — they are both supreme tests of manhood, in which a balletic athleticism has to conquer fear in order to be transfigured into courage.

The woodpecker jinked across the lawn like an especially cunning partridge. Its goal was a skilfully constructed bird table with wire surrounds, to provide safe feeding for finches, tits, woodpeckers and other small birds, while denying access to corvids, grey squirrels and raptors. A sparrow hawk regularly sweeps across the garden. The ‘sparrow’ element is misleading. This is an avian pocket-battleship, with not a molecule wasted in the pursuit of lethality. Sparrows? I have seen it feasting on a pigeon. It is a pity that real-life nature offers so little scope for sentimentality. Magpies are handsome creatures, but if you want songbirds, you will need a Larsen trap to control numbers. Cats seem at least as worthy of sentiment as dogs or children.

The virus is in retreat, the lock-down is crumbling, the sherbet dispensaries will shortly reopen and there is a second spike of summer. Every prospect pleases, and only demonstrating man is vile. In London, we have been subjected to the most ridiculous public protests since the Gordon riots or the agitation in favour of Queen Caroline. During the latter follies, Wellington, riding back to Stratfield Saye, found his way blocked by a crowd of yokels who declared that they would not let him pass until he had toasted the Queen. ‘Very well, sirs, if you will have it so, God bless Queen Caroline and may all your wives be like her.’ He then spurred away, leaving open mouths in his wake. In recent weeks, it has been less about open mouths, more a matter of empty minds.

It is enough to drive a man to drink. The most glorious weather, so suitable for white Burgundy on a picnic in a meadow-full of wild flowers, for rosé almost anywhere: above all, for beer. A few weeks ago, I wrote longingly about the thought of a pint of beer. Time has passed; the craving has intensified. Nor am I alone. Chatting to a friend about fine vintages being used as palliatives — these bottles I have shored against my lockdown — we agreed that there are moments when a foaming beaker of English wallop would hit the spot more satisfyingly than the most awe-inspiring bottle from Bordeaux or Burgundy. In my youth, there was a jingle about a pub with no beer. We little thought that it would turn into a prophecy.

I was once invited to the Cheltenham races and found the experience underwhelming. Everything was too respectable: not nearly Hibernian enough. I had expected to see Blazes Boylan, Flurry Knox, the Joxer and Christy Mahon, propping each other up in a determined attempt to drink the west of England out of Guinness. The reality was much tamer. But there was one source of amusement. By halfway through the afternoon, undeterred by their skill in dispensing losing tips, a lot of my journalistic colleagues had become equine experts. The previous day, these chaps would not have known the difference between a foal and a fetlock. Yet here they were, insisting that there was not enough stamina in the dam’s bloodline, and so forth. Just as well that they did not run into Flurry Knox.

This April was indeed the cruellest month, at least for those of us banged up in cities. From the country came reports of overflowing asparagus beds, the elfin splendour of the bluebell woods, precocious roses: the drinking of rosé, in England, at Easter. Now that we have the prospect of an end to the most onerous restrictions, what is going to happen to the weather? The British approach summer in the same way as the English approach cricket: with mistrust. Glorious days may occur, but there is no faith that they will endure. English cricket and the British climate could share a motto: sic transit. Yet there are ways of coping with April’s taunting sunshine. The great Falkland used to say that he pitied unlearned men on a rainy day.

I cannot remember a prettier Easter, or a more frustrating one. This was no time to be in town. But there is a way of strangling self-pity at birth: military history. That brings a sense of perspective. Better to be locked-down in a London flat than charging across a D-Day beach. Bulletins from those lucky enough to be rusticated all make the same point: how well everyone is behaving. Over most of the countryside, there seem to be more volunteers than there are duties to perform. When the call came in Dorset, one mildly octogenarian Brigadier sprang into action. Appointing himself GOC North Dorset, he chose his battalion commanders and staff officers while instructing his wife to repair any ravages his uniform had suffered from the young at fancy dress parties.

It is time to begin with an apology, and hope. In the course of these columns, I have already admitted to a deplorable ignorance of Spanish wine, including sherry. The finest sherries are subtle, complex, powerful — and excellent value. The same is increasingly true of other Spanish wines and there again, I am lament-ably ill-informed. There have always been serious Riojas. But a couple of decades ago, the late Bron Waugh lamented the fact that most Riojas left a hint of eggshell on the palate. In those days, he had a point. The principal Spanish grape is Tempranillo, which also produces excellent reds from the Ribera del Duero. There, the climate is harsher than in the rest of the Rioja vineyards.