Ou sont les bouteilles d’antan? With the onset of middle life, a good bottle can take on a melancholy aspect.
Ou sont les bouteilles d’antan? With the onset of middle life, a good bottle can take on a melancholy aspect. The other day, I was lucky enough to be at the drinking of a ’67 Yquem, which I had not tasted for nearly 20 years. Magnificent then, it had lost nothing over the previous decades. It was and remains a celestial harmony of sweetness and structure, like a Greek temple melted down in honey. But I had drunk the previous bottle with Alan Clark. So I retold a few of the best Clark stories and raised a glass to his shade.
Another bottle brought back a similar memory: another drinking companion who has crossed the Styx. In 1977, in the library of the Conservative Research Department, I picked up an insistent telephone. It was Woodrow Wyatt. Although he had been a Labour MP for many years and a junior minister under Attlee, Woodrow subsequently fell in love with Margaret Thatcher. By 1977, with a column in the News of the World, he was a crucial journalistic conduit to swing voters. He wanted to check a fact. I gladly obliged and placed my services at his disposal.
An invitation to luncheon at Wyatt Towers shortly followed and was regularly repeated. They were pleasurable occasions, and curious ones. The menu was always the same. A sort of shepherd’s pie would be followed by apple puree. I say ‘sort of’, because the pie too was virtually a puree. You could have drunk all the food through a straw. I wondered whether Woodrow had something wrong with his teeth.
But even if one’s gnashers had little to do, that was not true of the palate. The gossip was grand cru and the wine matched it. I wish I had kept a note of what we drank. But I do remember a pre-1914 Cognac which was a perfect blend of silk and fire: again, life-enhancing harmony. Once, there were three of us to lunch. ‘Would you like to try some Spanish stuff I’ve just bought at Christie’s, or will you help me finish off last night’s decanters?’ The other chap opted for Spain. I just knew that he was wrong. I was right.
From the decanters, there sprang a claret of breathtaking power. It was probably even better over lunch than it had been over dinner. A guess suggested itself. ‘Woodrow, is this what I think it is?’ ‘What is that?’ ‘Well, I’ve never tasted it, but I think that it might be the ’61 Latour.’ It was. (I must stress that my successful guesses are about as rare as opportunities to drink ’61 Latour.) My fellow guest, immune from the curse of oenophilia, took no notice and glugged away happily. Another question was inevitable. ‘Who were your dinner guests?’ ‘Just a couple of old friends… and Queen Elizabeth.’ It was a regal wine.
Duty done, decanters emptied — but only after the last long, long notes of Latour had died away beyond recall — I tried a drop of the Spanish white with the puree and paid it a high compliment, by telling Woodrow that it was worth a place in his cellar. Oddly enough, I remembered its name, an Albarino from Rias Baixas in Galicia, and it is worth a place in anyone’s cellar.
Albarino is a curious grape varietal, which probably started life as a hybrid of Alsatian Riesling. It is also related to Vinho Verde. One should not disparage that little wine. It is fine as an accompaniment to sardines in a simple restaurant near the beach at Cascais, and will be even more so when Portugal leaves the euro and prices return to common sense. But Vinho Verde is not a bottle for a wet November Monday in London. Albarino would do. Full in the mouth, with enough subtlety to deserve attention as it crosses the palate, it could easily stand up to a lesser example of its Alsatian relative or to a Pinot Gris. It would go well with chicken or a fish pie. As so often in Spain, viniculture is improving and standards are rising. Though it is not a long-lived wine, Albarino is a good drop of stuff. Look out for it and I do not think that you will be disappointed.
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