- Albariño - Delicately aromatic with taut minerality and flushing acidity. These straight-shooting wines reveal charming sophistication in their purity.
- Mencia - The most underrated red wines in Spain. Graceful, lightly spiced, and intensely mineral in a sense that is almost Burgundian. Showing opulent red fruit and an almost feral herbal quality.
- Godello: - Now gathering increasing renown for its versatility, muscular structure and juicy minerality. Like chardonnay, godello is fairly neutral in character and, though there are some heavily oaked examples, most of the wines tend to err on the side of fresh, lively and ripe.
Interestingly,
while making the point that Galicia's wines have only recently gone
commercial, she omits to include the Ribeiro
white wine, which was being exported to the UK hundreds of years ago,
eventually becoming a victim of the War
of the Spanish Succession.
Anyway, don't tell anyone about the big, fruity Mencias, which I've
been trying to keep a secret for the past 12 years. Except here, of
course. I actually saw a bottle on someone's shelves in the UK. At a
ridiculous price, of course. By the way, I do like a
straight-shooting wine.
Odd
ain't it? – While Germany has done its utmost to forget, apologise and atone for Hitler, France still worships Napoleon. And certainly
doesn't go around expressing even a soupçon of regret about him and the depredations of the troops he took on foreign holidays with him.
Maybe this is because the French populace never had to pay for the
emperor's crimes. As it happens, the April Prospect
magazine makes two mentions of him. The first is in the context of
a review of a fascinating book on the 500 year struggle for supremacy
in Europe, which could hardly ignore France under Napoleon. The
second is this extract from the memoirs of Bony's private secretary,
about his 2nd
(and final) abdication:- “I
came to
[the emperor] without having
the least
doubt in my mind that the only thing he could do was to descend once
more from the throne. I
communicated to him all the particulars I
had just received, and I
did not
hesitate to advise him to follow the only course worthy of him. He
listened to me with a sombre air, and though he was in some measure
master of himself, the agitation of his mind and the sense of his
position betrayed themselves in his face and in all his motions. ‘I
know,’ said I,
‘that your Majesty may still keep the sword drawn, but with whom,
and against whom? Defeat has chilled the courage of every one; the
army is still in the greatest confusion. Nothing is to be expected
from Paris, and the coup
d’etat of
the 18th Brumaire cannot be renewed.’ ‘That thought,’ he
replied, stopping, ‘is far from my mind. I
will
hear nothing more about myself. But poor France!’ At that moment
Savary and Caulaincourt entered, and having drawn a faithful picture
of the exasperation of the deputies, they persuaded him to assent to
abdication. Some words he uttered proved to us that he would have
considered death preferable to that step; but still he took it . . .
He insisted especially on the
necessity of proclaiming his son emperor, not so much for the
advantage of the child as with a view to concentrate all the power of
sentiments and affections. Unfortunately, nobody would listen to
him.” A tad sad, then. Sic transit
gloria mundi. Possibly he wasn't
nice enough to people on the way up. In France, I mean. Not, say,
Russia.
By
the way, guess who's won the said 500 year old struggle? Thanks to their
massed Euro battalions/billions.
No comments:
Post a Comment