Excavations of the palace of Amenhotep III at Malqata reveal that the ancient Egyptians paid even more attention to the labelling of wine than the Eurocrats. They identified the year, the grower, the vineyard and the quality; but they also specified the occasion on which the wine should be drunk: "wine for offerings", "wine for taxes", "wine for merrymaking", and so on. This practice would be helpful, it seems to me, when labelling the products of the Languedoc-Roussillon, most of which are sold as vins de pays, specifying grape varietal and year, but not whether the stuff is drinkable or on what occasion. "Wine for wound-dressing" and "wine for pig-fattening" would be apt for much of it. But as C&B reveals in this month's offer (opposite), there is also Languedoc wine for merrymaking, for tax returns and for the shooting of cats.
The Syrah is produced by a co-operative with the dispiriting name of Le Progres, and purports to originate in the Domaine de la Jonction, presumably planted in the first days of the railways, when "progress" was not such a dirty word. Despite those unpropitious signs, this is a wine for merrymaking, smooth, full-bodied and fruity, which summoned up the old Elvis tapes and set us spinning round the red room in an arthritic rock'n'roll.
The Cabernet Sauvignon, from the same co-operative, bears a more ancient name, Domaine de Saissac, and has a sweetish, cedarwood flavour that lends itself to solemn thought. It made light work of our tax returns, which, after baffling us all afternoon, seemed to add up perfectly by the end of the bottle. You could drink it every day and always feel better by bedtime.
We opened the Chardonnay from the Catalan hillsides at the moment when our neighbour's loathsome white cat appeared on the hillside, bearing in its jaws yet another dormouse - precious owl food and fruit of many hours of conservationist labour. Was this the moment, at last? A deep draught convinced me: dry as a bone, with a roar of oak in the background and an aftermath of cat's piss, this is a wine to "screw your courage to the sticking-place". I set off for the gun case.
Wait, though, said Sophie (the opposite in every way of Lady Macbeth), you haven't tried the Bergerac. I took the offered glass and a serene mouthful of Sauvignon-Semillon steadied my nerves. I remembered the fate of Tony Martin. If it's five years for shooting a guilty human, how much more for shooting an innocent cat? More of the delicious Bergerac produced the image of a GM organism, soaring like a bird but feeding doglike on felines, a cross between a buzzard and a Rottweiler. The vision came of a restored and biodiverse countryside, the genial buzzweilers barking gently in the air above.
