Sometime back in mid-April, in one of the gloomiest weeks of the early lockdown, a domestic revolution took place in the utility room of the Rectory. The chest freezer was banished to the garage, and the little nook into which it had neatly sat was repurposed as a cellar.
Cellar is too grand a description. Amazon delivered, and I assembled, a wooden wine rack that has space for nine rows of seven bottles. But cellar I call it. And a couple of times a day, I pop in there just to see that everything is all right with the world.
I blame Roger Scruton for my ruinously expensive new passion. Back in January, I wrote a kind of obituary to Scruton, trying to say something about his philosophy of place as captured in his life-long devotion to the grape. That started it. Sure, I have always enjoyed a glass of red or three. But since lockdown began, and the pubs and restaurants have closed their doors, I have started to order in from places like the Wine Society, and to make a point of thinking more carefully about what I am drinking. As I began to read more, I began to spend more. Now it’s become a full-blown obsession.
Only last night, I lay awake at 2.30am, my mind going round and round about the possibility of getting a few bottles of the second wine of Château Leoville-Barton. Thank God my membership of ‘the Left’ has been cancelled. It is something of a relief to have given up running away from the fact that I am a bourgeois cliché.
So please excuse the puppy-dog enthusiasm of the recent convert. But thinking about wine has come to be a lot more pleasurable than reflecting upon the miserable state of the world outside. From joyless woke fun-sponges micro-policing our vocabulary for signs of non-compliance, to the genuinely terrifying treatment of Muslims in Communist China along with the realisation that this virus is now in it for the long term — there has never been a more compelling time to retreat back into the domestic bosom, with wine as the evening comforter.
But instead of quaffing it back indiscriminately, I decided to take it seriously. After all, if you spent 30-odd quid going to a play or a concert, you would expect the experience to be enhanced by a certain amount of developed knowledge and by concentrating hard on what was being offered. With plays and concert venues shut down, it makes sense to focus aesthetic attention on something that can be enjoyed within the domestic sphere. And wine is therefore an obvious candidate.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI hope that your new hobby proves less expensive and crazy than mine. When I find the news too unbearable and the liberal left too crazy I start perusing the auction catalogues for antiques. I’ve just bought a coromandel dining table in not very good condition, and every time I think of it I smell the beeswax polish I will have to apply and the turps and so on. Then I combine that smell in my mind’s nose with the musty smell of my old dining room and all its other musty old furniture and my heart rate goes up as if I’m a teenager thinking about my true love. Then I think about all the months of family allowance I will have to save up to get it professionally restored and how cross my husband will be and I want the earth to swallow me up and I can’t really console myself with the thought that Christ sat at a dining table, because I already own several others and supper tables.
Please consider buying South African wines. South Africa had an initial 55-day prohibition on the sale of alcohol at the start of lock down which was re-imposed last Sunday night, apparently for a further 8 weeks. This has had and is likely to have a devastating impact on the alcohol value chain, including wine farms and wine farm workers. During the first ban not even export was allowed, but in this current version of prohibition there is an exception for export.
You omitted to mention that the best of them are superb.
What a lovely article! Made me smile.
It has made me think – my way of retaining my sanity during lockdown has been to try to improve my painting. Really learning to look. Very much in parallel with your really paying attention to how the wine tastes. And I loved the quote from Schuster.
Cheers!
Mine was observing and identitying wild flowers on walks around my home here in Avoca, Ireland. Really learning to look and pay attention to these beautiful tiny miracles of nature.
Giles. I sympathise. I too have been partially infected by this ailment. I cannot stop myself dreaming about the en-primeur news coming out this year with apparently great prices. Having never really had the budget for this stuff I find myself trying to justify a small investment in a few cases of something special that I dream of being able to savour with a few good friends. Then sadly I wake up…..
Welcome to the club Giles. We continued with our weekly (sometimes more often), high level blind tastings during lockdown, often in my garden. On the other hand, the annual trip to Gigondas was scuppered.
Try to move beyond Bordeaux, there are much more interesting things out there.
“In vino veritas!”
Hope you are exploring beyond boring Bordeaux Giles, otherwise you truly deserve the title of your article.
Funnily enough I once attended a fancy dress party as a bottle of Leoville Barton, the party theme being ‘Heroes’. Someone brought a ’96 to the recent Midsummer Night’s Dream tasting. It was superb and I identified it blind.
I’m jealous.
But the £3.99 from Liddle’s is drinkable.
Think how virtuous that makes me!!
Become, Giles?
Leoville Barton would be well worth it Giles so, if you have the wherewithal, do it, but remember it will age more quickly in a makeshift cellar than if it is stored ideally. I don’t think there is a second wine though; it’s already the second wine of Leoville Langoa Barton (that’s where the vinyard is) so if you buy a Leoville Barton it’s just a Leoville Barton. No guilt required on any aspect of your new passion aside from the purchase of the rack from Amazon (you are surely still enough of a liberal leftie not to feed the beast….)
La reserve de Leoville Barton?
You are right and I stand (gracefully on your part) corrected. I’m now, myself, tempted…
I totally agree, but unfortunately my low spending power, coupled with my pressing need to end each evening in a benign haze, means most of my wines come from Aldi.
I must say though, that they do a good line in inexpensive reds. These may not result in angels dancing on my tongue, but they do make shouting insults at Jon Snow, as he pulls that condescending ‘interested parent’ face when interviewing black people, a lot easier
You did not become you already were
‘Have I become a bourgeois cliche?’ – Wait, when exactly were you not one?
Absolutely agree with all sentiments expressed above but how do you deal with opened bottles of red wine?
I like a glass a day of red a day but opened bottles of red do not keep without a ruinous nitrogen air replacement system
Do I have to have 2 drinking companions round every night to finish the bottle?
If I order half bottles- still expensive and still requires 1 drinking companion every night
My wife’s white wine (her preference) however keeps well in the fridge for days-certainly over the 4 days required to finish the bottle-very unfair!
Malcom – I normally find that any halfway decent red wine actually tastes better on the second and third days, after it has had a chance to properly “breathe”. Failing that, a VacuVin might be a good investment…
I would second the VacuVin recommendation. It’s kept some of my wines drinkable over the course of a week.
Red in the fridge too, for temporary storage, after opening (and closed). Needs a small amount of forward planning to remove and bring back to room temperature. I would not necessarily recommend it with a very decent red but I’ve been doing it for forty years with everyday drinking reds. This also has the advantage of allowing the wine to be breathed in advance of drinking again. I see Jancis Robinson has written similarly, so I’m not entirely out on a limb here.
With your next full bottle, pour half the wine into a saved, washed and dried half bottle before you start drinking – cork and put in the fridge. It’ll keep at least a week with little noticeable deterioration. Follow the same procedure, if needs be, with small 200cl-ish bottles. With a screw top you can fill these to the brim and they will keep their condition in the fridge for days. Half and small bottles used in rotation this way will let you to control how much you want to drink.