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.
The territories which the Italians did gain proved ideal for growing Pinot Noir
One might have assumed that he would share the 19th–century Liberals’ Gladstonian enthusiasm for the Ris-orgimento. Not so. He is sceptical about the House of Savoy and indeed finds good words to say about the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Gladstonedescribed it as the negation of God erected into a system of government. Not so, says David Gilmour. That was more the Papal States. When its officials were driven out, many of them seem to have found refuge in Ireland, where they took charge of Catholic children’s education.
Starting with Garibaldi, there was often an opéra bouffe element to Italian self-assertion. This reached a climax during the first world war. By 1915, it should have been clear that there would be no re-enactment of Bismarck’s surgical-strike wars. This one was turning into a quagmire of human hopes: a second fall of man. Yet in Rome there was a feeling that Italy had to join in. France and Britain bribed the Italians with offers of Austrian territory: Italy took the bait.
Up in the Alto Adige, the Italians lost hundreds of thousands of troops, many of whom died of cold.
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