Drink

It is hard to decide which is more depressing, the extension of the lockdown or the public support for this latest instance of ministerial panic. The Royal Navy may still march to ‘Heart of Oak’. But among great swathes of the civilian population, there is precious little sign of stout-heartedness. As well as virus variants, there is another infection, from variants of Stockholm syndrome. Many Britons appear to be enjoying captivity: mask-wearing, restrictions, bossing people about. The trouble is that there is no vaccine to hold all that at bay. Boris promises relief after four weeks. He means it; he always does with his promises. But in BoJo speak, four

It seemed a suitable topic for a bank holiday. We were discussing Haut-Brion, a bank-breaking wine. There is a question that is often asked. Which is the greatest claret, Haut-Brion, Lafite or Latour? I find that easy to answer: the one I have drunk most recently — not that I have tasted nearly enough of any of them. (I have heard at least one expert claim that post-war, there has been no greater claret than Haut-Brion ’59.) Haut-Brion is a marvellous wine. Thomas Jefferson may have been the first to explain why. There is a good deal of gravel in the terroir, which seems to give the wine an intellectual

Freedom approaches. Should we be humming ‘Va, Pensiero’ or ‘O Welche Lust’ — perhaps both. Thinking of Fidelio reminds me of a delicious comment made about Ted Heath by the late Sam Brittan in the FT, decades ago. On this occasion, Le Grand Epicier was being interviewed about music. He declared that Fidelio was one of his favourite operas and that every time he saw it, he was inspired anew by the ideals of freedom which it so powerfully expressed. Sam was unpersuaded. ‘Poor Mr Heath. He may be moved by Fidelio. Yet he does not realise that if the British public knew that noble work, they would immediately identify

We were discussing travel, that forbidden delight now tantalisingly close. Where would be our first destination? Forswearing originality, I chose Venice. Among the world’s greatest paintings, one in particular does not merely come to mind. It fills the mind. I have never been in the Serenissima for the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, probably just as well. In mid-August, there are bound to be pedestrian traffic jams all the way from the Piazza to the Rialto. But it is possible to imagine the event. Go to Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Use your inner eye to fill the church with the entire nobility of Venice, festooned with gold

There is a more depressing subject than the lockdown. The evening began with a bottle of 18-year-old Glenmorangie. It was subtle and relatively gentle, but also powerful. Alas, this true flower of Scotland lured our talk towards disaster. We started discussing contemporary Scottish politics. Instantly, we were transported to Macbeth: ‘Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself.’ My friend said that this was unfair. Nicola Sturgeon was not as bad as Macbeth (though she would make a good Lady Macbeth). I disagreed. She is worse. It was relatively easy for Scotland to recover from Macbeth. He just needed to be slain. There is no such simple cure for the

Along with many other people, I gave up drinking for the month of January and then resumed with gusto on 1 February. But my 13-year-old son Fred, the only Christian in my household, urged me to give it up again for Lent. ‘Why not keep me company?’ he asked, having decided to forego sugar. But he didn’t just demand I stop boozing. He’d spotted the fact that when I go through a teetotal phase I compensate by stuffing my face with nuts and chocolate, thereby piling on the pounds. So he insisted I give up all three for 40 days. At least, he told me it was 40 days. In

Lockdown provides time to think, and to reminisce. A South African friend, trapped in Amsterdam, phoned the other day. Had I written about the David and Nadia wines from Swartland we had tasted at the end of last year? Not yet: I was awaiting further particulars, which may have been remiss of me. Justerini and Brooks is a major stockist and they are some of the best wines coming out of South Africa, which is saying a lot. Wines have been produced in South Africa since the Huguenots settled in vine-friendly lands not far from Cape Town. Stellenbosch, Paarl and the aptly named Franschhoek are well known. Swartland is catching

The wine has been flowing in the Young household this week. The reason I’ve been celebrating is because I managed to get through January without a drink. Like many people, I try to do this every year, but it felt like a particular achievement this year because of the lockdown Boris announced on 4 January. Almost everyone I know used that as an excuse to fall off the wagon. ‘There’s no way I can get through another lockdown without a drink’ was the general refrain. One thing that helped was joining the Wine Society and loading up on bottles throughout ‘dry’ January. It had never occurred to me to join

When Napoleon III proclaimed himself Emperor of France in 1852, he unwittingly kickstarted quality wine production in Chile and Argentina. A mass exodus of republicans ensued, one of whom happened to be a skilled agronomist from Tours named Michel Aimé Pouget. Pouget carried with him a cache of French grape cuttings that were to change the course of wine history and formed the basis for Argentina’s wine industry today. Because of the phylloxera plague, French wine production fell by 75 per cent between 1875 and 1889. Today the vines of Europe are still grafted on to phylloxera-resistant American root stock. In Argentina and Chile, which have no phylloxera, old ungrafted

Losing your sense of smell due to Covid is no joke when you make a living in food and wine. In April last year my taste buds shut down for three weeks. I began staring at my wine cellar like a recovering addict for whom the drugs no longer worked. Sure, I’d read posts from other sufferers who were concerned about whether or not their olfactory organs would ever get back to normal, but I’m fatalistic, and besides, my chances were good. But if my smell didn’t return, I’d rue having not lived in the moment more often. Pandemics, floods, wildfires, cyber-attacks, artificial intelligence, terrorism: we’re living in a boom

There is straw inside the Fortnum & Mason Christmas Treat Hamper (£100). As the straw drifts through the house, it begins to resemble a stable. I like this. Hampers are dependent on plants for their mystery: without them they would be just a carrier bag full of food. Restaurants are closed to those who live apart, unless you are in Cornwall or the Isle of Wight. So, this is the Christmas of hampers; of alcohol, sugar and baked and dried goods. There are gin hampers and beer hampers and vegan hampers. There are hampers for dogs (‘woofly good’) and hampers for cats (‘the hampurr’). There is a Branston Pickle hamper,

I feel like a prisoner, making daily marks on the cell wall to chart the approach of freedom. But will it be freedom, or will we be on parole, obliged to wear a tag and subject to re-incarceration at authority’s whim? Such thoughts do not encourage equanimity. On that subject, I remember a delightfully splenetic political column by the late — alas — Alan Watkins, published a generation ago. As Christmas approaches, even the most acerbic hack feels obliged to relent and sound a little more like Fezziwig, a little less like Scrooge. Perhaps because he was never given to excessive astringency, Alan did not relent. He was complaining about

At least in London, midwinter spring has not been entirely vanquished, and the trees are still a couple of strong winds away from losing their autumn glory. This will give the government some undeserved help. People can sit outside, and the view from windows is not too depressing. Before long, though, those indoors are likely be cursing the PM and his close associates: ‘sic a parcel of rogues in a nation’. Burns and the onset of seasonal bleakness makes one think of the dark. In earlier times in Scotland, Hallowe’en was a characteristic festivity: an attempt to embrace the oncoming winter. Its theme was ghouls and witchcraft. Children, dressed as

It had been a long and no doubt fractious sea voyage. The crew would have signed up for a variety of reasons: pay, adventure, escape from domestic ties — in some cases, no doubt, escape from the authorities. After ten weeks at sea, some of them would have doubted their judgment, if not indeed their very sanity. Then came the lookout’s cry: the Spanish for ‘Land ho’. Christopher Columbus had set forth to find a passage to China. Instead, he had discovered America, a new world, large parts of which would soon be known as New Spain. The 12th of October 1492, when that forgotten sailor announced that the world

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,

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