Wine - Roger Scruton hears the curlew's call
Published 01 August 2005
Hear the flight-song of the curlew in this opulent red from the Rhone
Songbirds emit long, improvised melodies, the function of which is to distinguish me-bird from you-bird and my place from yours. Other birds emit only species cries which, although mostly monotonous and unmusical, like the natter of the magpie or the croak of the crow, also include the most evocative sounds in nature: the owl's hoot, the buzzard's whistle, the seagull's appoggiatura. And perhaps no bird call is more beautiful to the human ear than the flight-song of the curlew: a bubbling fountain of sound that seems to well up from the earth, filling the sky with a spray of mingled pitches. It was, until recently, the sound that heralded spring in our part of the world, as the curlews came in to breed on our hilltops. Alas, there is little room for ground-nesting birds in a landscape policed by suburban pets, and it is three years since we last heard that uplifting music.
The attempt to capture the call of the curlew in human speech has never been more successful than in Provencal, which instead of imitating, as English does, the rising note sung on the ground, makes a stab at the sky-haunting melody of the flight-song. Le couroulu can still be heard above the hilltops of Provence, and fortunately we can drink it in the glass in Wiltshire. For it has given its name to a small estate on the hills of Vacqueyras where Guy Ricard makes an opulent and long-lasting wine that is typical of this appellation.
Lying between Gigondas and Beaumes-de-Venise, Vacqueyras
is a worthy newcomer to the classified wines of the southern Rhone, and one that is still affordable. The red, made mainly from Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsault, exhibits a smooth texture and fragrant aroma that enable it to stand proud beside the product of neighbouring Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Put your nose to a glassful of M Ricard's wine, and you will be garlanded with perfumes that recall the high-spraying notes of the curlew. With full cherry fruit, fresh acidity and a firm base of tannin, this is a wine to keep always by you, a perfect antidote to damp English summers and vile suburban cats.
You can obtain the excellent 2001 vintage of Domaine le Couroulu from Berry Brothers, at £8.95 if you buy by the case. This is only one of many well-priced and well-chosen Rhone wines offered by this famous merchant, whose name, after decades of careful research, ought to be synonymous with the Rhone. Starting with a Costieres de NImes at less than a fiver and rising to Etienne Guigal's reserve Cote Rotie at over a tonne, Berry Bros presents all the many reasons for believing that the ancient Greeks who settled in the Rhone Valley, and who made wine-growing their first priority, were guided by the gods. But what, I wonder, was their name for the curlew?
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