Wine

I have had three recent conversations, all lively if unrelated – and all well lubricated. The first concerned Anglo-Saxon England around ad 700. Recent discoveries of coin hoards suggested that economic activity during that period of the Dark Ages was more extensive than had been supposed. Without damaging the coins, it had been possible to establish that some of their silver content had come from Byzantium. Every timeI drink a German wine I am convinced that one should do so more often The main discussants were a couple of academics who had been disciples and friends of Philip Grierson, one of the greatest numismatists of all time: a scholar, collector and major benefactor of the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. That reminded me of an embarrassing meeting.

Holy Week, but not everywhere. After reading that the diocese of Birmingham wanted to hire staff to help with deconstructing whiteness, only one conclusion is possible. Large parts of the C of E have become a theological and liturgical wilderness. The Devil is in charge and it is unholy week, 52 weeks a year. Anglican friends assure me that this is overdoing the pessimism. There are sound clerics – even the occasional sound bishop – and in some areas, traditions survive. Certainly Sherborne Abbey has just put on a superb Palm Sunday, and the procession included a donkey, the sweetest-natured of animals and a perpetual outlet for sentimentality.

My last piece began with a one-word sentence: ‘Gloom.’ A dear friend reproached me. ‘In a world already abundant with gloom, surely you can find a way of cheering us up. After all, you’re not writing about politics – or at least you’re not supposed to be.’ I promised to try harder to propagate good news. When it comes to wine, that is not impossible. Twenty years ago, in Lisbon, I was treated to a bottle of Barca Velha. I was told that the Portuguese regarded it as their Château Latour. Needless to say, it was not that good but I remember thinking that it was a jolly decent drop of stuff, and – in those days – excellent value. Only half of that judgment still holds true. I tried a 2012 the other day and it was excellent: as good as a Bordeaux second growth.

Noble Rot, which is named for a sickness that afflicts grapes, a self-aware name for a restaurant in London, is becoming a chain. Don’t get me wrong. The Rots in Lamb’s Conduit Street and Greek Street (which replaced the Gay Hussar that died in sympathy with the intelligent left) are two of the best restaurants we have. My only complaint is that, like the Plastics in Mean Girls, they know how lovely they are and have their own promotional magazine. This food has a loving intensity to it, and it is as good as you will find in London Now they have expanded into Mayfair – but the least horrifying part, which is Shepherd’s Market.

Gloom. Relentless rain out of a sullen sky enhanced an already pessimistic mood. We were talking geopolitics and agreeing that the West ought to brace itself for a hard landing. Try as we might, we could find no good news, anywhere. Where is the self-belief of the Reagan/Thatcher years? Instead, a culture war is taking place Some of us were veterans, one or two of whom had spent time in Washington in 1980, the build-up to the Reagan era and the prelude to the most successful decade in modern peacetime history, in which Margaret Thatcher played a crucial role.

Consider the paradox of lemons. In Italy, one associates them with scented groves. A few years ago, Helena Attlee wrote the book The Land Where Lemons Grow, in which citrus fruits become a golden thread running through the history of Italian agriculture. Yet though the lemon is arguably the most beautiful of fruits, its tart taste is bracing. A spremuta di limone finds a swift route to any shaving nicks. Most limoncello is produced on the Amalfi coast but there is an outlier from Godalming But the lemon can be sweetened, in the form of limoncello, an after-dinner drink of no great subtlety, good for pouring over puddings but hardly a match for the fortified wines of the Iberian peninsula. That said, there is an exception.

Wine stimulates the wits, emboldens debate, and inspires the mind. Judicious quantities, abetted by judicious quality, encourage the participants to attack the important questions. Thus it has been over the past few days, discussing God and the Universe. I was talking to an astronomer, whose day is spent contemplating the vastness of interstellar space. Consider one single light year, and how far that would take us from our own celestial neighbourhood. Then let your mind give way before the unimaginable distances. Already daunted, move onwards to the queen of the sciences, theology, and the question posed by that outstanding 20th-century theologian, Mr Prendergast in Decline and Fall. He could not explain why God had bothered to make the world.

During the festive season, I usually spend far too much time thinking and talking about politics. But the latest was an exception. One hostess fixed me with a gimlet eye and announced that she had forbidden any discussion of Israel/Palestine. At a recent dinner party, the table had been repeatedly banged, someone had stormed out and others were now on non-speaks. I quoted the late Clarissa Eden. During the Suez crisis, she felt that the Canal was running through her drawing-room. This girl gave a hearty nod in agreement. I was happy to agree with the ban, but declared my surprise. How could anyone be so sure of the solution? The most I could come up with was ruminative gloom.

My New Year’s resolution is to cut down on my drinking. I’m not talking about bringing it within the NHS’s recommended limit, obviously. I’ve never met anyone who confines their alcohol intake to 14 units a week, which amounts to a bottle and a half of wine, ideally spread over many days. I’m thinking of something more in the region of two bottles a week. Why not simply stop altogether? Partly because I’ve tried that before and don’t have the willpower. The longest stretch I’ve gone without a drink was in the two years leading up to my marriage in 2001, because I didn’t think Caroline would go through with it if I didn’t take the pledge.

Back in 1989, a most unsatisfactory fellow called General Aoun started a civil war around Beirut in the hope of seizing control of the Maronite Christian portions of Lebanon. He ended up with political wreckage, which has endured. Château Berliquet 2015 is a fruity St Emilion that deserves to be better known During the fighting, I spent a few days cut off in the British ambassador’s summer residence, watching the battle going on below. We felt safer than we probably were, partly because Pauline Ramsay, the ambassador’s enchanting wife, tried to turn the crisis into a house party. So British: so best of British. We watched, helpless, as one block of flats was regularly hit by shells.