After surviving minus 27 degrees during Montreal’s longest cold streak since records began, I wanted two things: a medal, and hot weather. Nevertheless, I surprised myself by enjoying Canadian winter, with its contoured feet of sparkling whiteness, ice rinks in every city park, and those gargantuan trucks, hoovering the roads then dumping tons of snow on the frozen St Lawrence river. The surfaces were icy but interesting and the interiors superbly insulated. And you drink well there, which does wonders for the circulation.
In Quebec and Ontario, they bury winter vines beneath the snow, which protects them until spring. Back in not-quite-as-snowy London, I sought a different style of insulation. Tio Pepe’s Fino Dos Palmas, tangy, elegant sherry that shelters eight years in barrel before emerging, golden as late-afternoon sunshine, into the hot air of Andalusia; and VV, a glorious, rich Roussanne, full of ripe apricots, from Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where the broad, flat stones called galets roulés capture summer’s heat and warm the old vines’ roots through winter.
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