Wine

I was reminded of Wild West films from boyhood. Then, the beleaguered garrison scanned the horizon; would the US cavalry arrive in time to save them from being scalped? (John Wayne always did.) Now, one was hoping for relief, not from the Injuns, but in the form of an Indian summer. This is of especial interest to those who have a tendresse for Somerset cricket. Its paladins usually have a charmingly amateur quality. As Cardus wrote of an earlier cricketing vintage: ‘[They are] children of the sun and wind and grass. Nature fashioned them rather than artifice.’ Somerset needs a match or two in order to gain points and avoid relegation. That said, the way we were playing earlier in the season, being rained off was the best hope.

Mark Harvey, Chapel Down’s managing director of wines, was in great form last week at our Spectator Winemaker’s Lunch, held as usual in our boardroom. And I must add that Mark’s wines were in equally tiptop shape. With vineyards across Kent and a winery near Tenterden, Chapel Down is well-known as the largest producer of fine English wine. Although most of us around the table had enjoyed Chapel Down’s wares before, the one or two guests who hadn’t were taken aback by the wines’ quality, style and, well, sheer panache. We started with the 2011 Three Graces, a fabulous fizz blended from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (the said three graces) and aged on the lees for four years.

I have been thinking about the Dark Ages. This has nothing to do with Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn. A friend of mine, Chase Coffin-Roggeveen, has a doctoral thesis in mind about the increasing use of wine for liturgical purposes during the English Dark Ages. Like all scholars who address that period, he has to wrestle with slender sources. Those who do not leave documents tend to be written out of history: think of the Wends. There are revisionists, such as Sally Harvey, who contrast the surviving beauties of Saxon civilisation — consider the manuscripts — with the Normans’ brutality. There is an obvious three-hour essay question: ‘How dark were the Dark Ages?’ Chase is well qualified to address such topics.

It was a typical bank holiday. Usual English weather: glorious, until you leave home without a brolly. Then fickleness supervenes — just like the opinion polls. I was pressed by anxious enquiries. ‘You’re supposed to know about these things. There’s no chance of Corbyn winning, surely?’ On the assumption that enough of the sovereign people are still in their right wits, I was able to sound reassuring. But as I did so, a memory came back: Quintin Hogg in 1964, proclaiming that anyone who voted Labour was stark, staring bonkers. These days, that would be called a gaffe. The once and future Lord Hailsham was famous for gaffes. As he would now be called a national treasure, it is unlikely that any harm was done. But Harold Wilson still won.

As a wine bore, holidays abroad are a battle with the family to cram in as many vineyard visits as possible when all they want to do is go to the beach. But it’s only recently that I have begun to take advantage of the riches on my doorstep. I wonder how many Londoners realise that half an hour from St Pancras is one of the world’s most dynamic wine regions — Kent. My previous reluctance might have something to do with the weather. As you leave London on the M20, there always seems to be a moment of sunshine that lights up the countryside before it starts to rain again. No matter. While many wine regions can be ugly — the Médoc is a drained swamp — Kent is lovely, even in the drizzle.

Paris used to be the most self-confident city in the world. Brash, assertive, boastful: Manhattan claimed to be the best. Cool, elegant, sophisticated, supercilious: Paris knew that it was the best. This is no longer true. Paris has lost its élan, and that has created a love-hate relationship with the UK. Everyone seems to know someone who is working in London. The ones left in Paris cannot decide whether to punish us or join us: to hope that Brexit fails — or to fear that Brexit might fail, and keep able young Frenchmen from job opportunities in London. Flics everywhere, tattiness, tension: one is reluctant to acknowledge the successes of evil, but terrorism is at the core of Paris’s problems.

Eliot. After 50 years trying to make sense of his verse, and at the risk of admitting to rampant philistinism, I propose three conclusions. At his best, he is one of the finest poets in the language. Partly because he is straining language and thought to the uttermost — an analogy with the final Beethoven piano sonatas — he is sometimes incomprehensible: sometimes, indeed, falls into arrant pseudery. Finally, his anti--Semitism before the war, his rejection of Animal Farm after it: this great man and devout Christian was not exempt from original sin. Gerontion. ‘The Jew squats on the window sill, spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp.’ We turn our eye from the page in revulsion and pity.

Call me a sentimental old whatever, but watching a four-year old hearing The Tale of Samuel Whiskers for the first time, read by someone who could do the police in different voices, took one as far from the Waste Land as is possible. It also made me think about moggies, which brought back memories of a trip to Kabul. Outside the Portakabin where we were billeted, there was a notice: ‘Please do not bring cats into the living quarters.’ No one puts up an instruction like that without the expectation that it will be disobeyed. One can imagine why, and how very British. It is to the credit of the brutal and licentious, living in cramped conditions, exposed to constant danger, that they had sentimentality left for local felines.

And so it begins again. This time last year, I decided to see how long I could last without alcohol. Not just a dry January for me. Oh no. I saw myself lasting right the way through till the following December. According to a doctor friend, your liver only really regenerates after 12 months. Less than that and the health benefits of not drinking are negligible. You know how this story ends, although, to be fair, I lasted until 8 February. I’d been booked to give an after-dinner talk to a group of head-teachers at one of England’s most prestigious private schools and I assumed that the wine would be so good — it was an elite group of about a dozen top heads — that I’d have to abandon my teetotalism for one night.

The other day, I had lunch with the grandest person I know. Forget 1066: Adrian Ziani de Ferranti can trace his Venetian ancestors to the time when St Theodore was the city’s patron saint and St Mark’s corpse still reposed in Alexandria. Ziani Doges were buried under the crypt of San Zaccaria centuries before Bellini painted that church’s sublime altarpiece. John Julius Norwich believes that it is the finest painting in Venice. Were I entitled to an opinion, it might go in favour of the Titian Assumption in the Frari, but we are talking about works which transcend mere admiration: works of mastery, glory and joy. Anyway, the Zianis were part of the fabric of la Serenissima.

This is something to be said for starting to celebrate Christmas before the end of the grouse season. It provides a good excuse for opening the odd bottle. Apropos bottles, the club of that name has not featured on this page for some time. That is not because of idleness. One Bottle is single-handedly defending the criminal justice system. Others are editing and writing for Reaction, an online journal which, though not (quite) as right-wing as it sounds, is waging the culture wars. There may be further members, but if so, they were elected late in the evening, and no one can remember who they were. But it is pleasing to report that the two junior Bottles are in fine form. Even if they are still too young for full participation, Charlie and Florrie are Bottledom’s military wing.

A few days ago, on the Dorset/Somerset marches, autumn was still in orderly retreat. Although a pear tree’s leaves had turned sere and yellow, the last fruit was still peeping through. Across the lawn, a horse chestnut was undressing, festooning the lawn with bronze. Out of a cloudless sky, a mild seasonal sun blessed the scene with a gentle glow, as if it were pouring Sauternes. Along the Ladies’ Walk, the yellows and greens were reinforced by bushes in russet mantles and by the triumphant redness of acers and liquidambar. We could have almost been in the New England fall, at least for a few yards. Autumn, fall: the two have profound resonances from different histories. As one might expect from its French name, autumn is full of good eating.

An aeon ago, when I was first invited to the odd City lunch, there was a standard formula: G&T, white, red, port, brandy, cigars, with stumps drawn at around a Test match tea interval. But there was a problem. By 8 a.m. local time, when Manhattan was champing at the telephone, London would be at lunch. By the time the call was returned, it would be apparent that lunching had taken place. ‘My Dear Cyrus, how nice to hear your voice. Are you planning to cross the big pond? If so, we’ll have a jolly good lunch.’ Cyrus thought to himself: ‘Is that all those Limeys ever do: have lunch?’ Within a few years, post-Big Bang, the Cyruses did cross the big pond, but not to enjoy lunch.

A long-standing friend of mine is a lucky fellow. He has spent his career doing exactly what he was born to do: befriending the human race. An inspired philanthropist, he has done more to help mankind than most aid agencies and NGOs put together. His name is Andrew Smith and he has devoted his career to selling whisky. Whisky and freedom gang the gither: whisky and all good things go together. Andrew spent many years working for Brown-Forman, an admirably well-run American family company. Family members who wish to join the firm have to possess two degrees and to have proved themselves working for another outfit. Brown-Forman is probably best known for Jack Daniel’s, a Tennessee whisky which sells very well, all across the world. That is helpful.