Wine club - Roger Scruton solves his marital problems
Published 08 August 2005
Prosecco, tasting of Italian kisses, is the gift to settle any marital quarrel
A reference to Horace will make me overlook many faults - youth, energy and cheerfulness included. So the appearance on these pages of the forward-looking firm Bibendum has not unduly disturbed me. To open our wine club to competition may strike readers as a bold and unsocialist policy, but the team at Bibendum plied us with irresistible wines and spoke warmly of the New Statesman. The assignment duly came, vindicating our wisdom in cultivating these charming people and spinning them such interesting yarns about our well-heeled new Labour readership.
Now all sophisticated people know about Prosecco, that light but poetic alternative to champagne with the authentic taste of Italian kisses. Here is the gift to settle any marital quarrel not caused by Italian kisses. We opened it after I lost my temper over Sophie losing her temper over me not losing my temper when I should have done about something we had both forgotten. The result was instantaneous, causing Sophie to forget the supper in the oven, at which point, I am sorry to say, I lost my temper.
Things improved over our frazzled chops on account of the 1999 Penedes, a truly classy wine, showing just what the Cabernet Sauvignon grape can achieve when vinified the Catalonian way, with a curtain of vanilla, a thick backcloth of tannin, and the sauciest of Murillo smiles. I resolved to lay down a case as soon as I am paid for that article on pigeons. Only when Sophie revealed that she had forgotten to send the invoice did my humour darken. But sleep knit, knitted or knat up the ravelled sleave of care, and by morning all was forgiven.
The most original wine on offer is undoubtedly the rose, made from the grapes that also produce Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron, a classed-growth claret that few of us can now afford. This has the freshness of rose with some of the reserve and style of fine claret: a perfect accompaniment, we discovered, to a cheese omelette, and with complexities that filled the void after dinner, when the Prom was over, the book too heavy, and bed not quite in view.
California is second only to Burgundy in its ability to extract the best from the Pinot Noir. The De Loach is a fine example of the rich fruitiness bestowed by the Californian climate, and - so long as you see its alcohol content (14.5 per cent) as a sign of American exuberance - you will praise its good humour and come up for more. Sipping the delicious South African Sauvignon was like sucking a pebble, and as for the Chardonnay, it seems to me that Australia would mend its damaged reputation if it stopped buttering its Chardonnay and took a lesson from MadFish.
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