Humility - or the lack thereof!

Few of us are always humble in our approach to life, probably for various reasons. Speaking for myself I have now learned and achieved an inconsistent level of humility, so am always in awe of people for whom humility is natural and inherent. We rarely see them because their modesty prevents them from promoting their abilities, knowledge and success, so they become practically invisible to most; this is as natural as it is incredibly unfortunate.

One of the characteristics of the younger generations in most western societies today is the total lack of humility, the absolute - and often irrational - belief in themselves and their abilities, most often despite the complete absence of any proof of such. Legions of limited, talentless - and often brain-dead - specimens push themselves forward as gifted, uniquely capable, well-equipped and ready to lead; this would be some kind of cruel joke if it were not so monumentally stupid.

So it is with surprise and great pleasure that one encounters young, hugely talented individuals who are not full of themselves or self-promoters but quietly get on with their chosen work, leaving judgement of their working life to others. And one night last month I met just such a young man - head chef at Spondi, one of the best restaurants in Greece (if not the best) for many years and rewarded with two Michelin stars - who not only produced a stunning meal full of skill, subtlety and flavour, but was reluctant to personally accept credit and was gracious in praising his assistants. There was no artifice to this, no fakery, just an extraordinarily talented young man who was also humble, genuine, nice; sad to say, he is to a large extent an exception in any profession, walk of life, country.

If you wander down to any fashionable eatery in Athens you'll find plenty of other chefs, perfectly ordinary, in reality mere cooks, touting themselves as important but having little of the skill we witnessed yet devoting scant effort to improving within their chosen profession. Seems like perhaps today all you need to do is to proclaim yourself to be great for others to take it on board, be convinced with little evidence and support you blindly, with the multiplier effect of the social media making this an even more powerful statement. Almost overnight a nonentity with inflated self-belief becomes a feted star who believes in his own publicity or, even worse, that most dreaded of all things, a celebrity! And you and I get to see them in their droves promoting products and themselves on television, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. After that it's an easy step to become big-headed, arrogant and obnoxious, and most oblige.

Of course not everyone is like that, of course there are extremely capable but humble people active in many spheres of life, of course they are the ones I will always support, leaving the insufferables to others, sorry!

And of course the other humble ones, the ones who have so much to be modest about, tend to resemble the vast majority of us average Joes and Joannas. We should not forget that most of us have modest abilities and should be humble, but that should not stop us from admiring the extraordinary ones who, nevertheless, are also modest and humble.

Conspiracies and Cock-ups

I am always intrigued by people who believe the world is controlled by a never-ending stream of conspiracies, some simple, others extremely intricate. The ability to see a hidden hand everywhere is something that fascinates and annoys me in equal measure; it is also something that my Greek compatriots have in abundance, always seeing someone's plan in everything. If we espouse that way of thinking, the world becomes a frightening place.

What truly terrifies me, however, is the cock-up, something I believe to be far more common and, indeed, far more dangerous than any conspiracy. The polite description of a cock-up is 'mistake', and we are all familiar with the sentiment that mistakes are only human, thus creating the illusion that they are harmless. Not so. Cock-ups are not only encountered more commonly than we think in every level and every corner of society, they often have devastating effects. None of us would feel kindly disposed, for example, to the pilot of the jumbo jet we were flying in saying something like 'oops, well folks we're about to run out of fuel because we forgot to fill her up properly, so we're all going to die...'. Cock-ups can - and have been - that serious, resulting often in death and destruction.

My impetus for writing about cock-ups came from one of my own in my last piece, where I mentioned the name of a young winemaker and praised him as a potential star of the future on the strength of the quality and style of his first ever wine. Which would have been fine if I hadn't given him the wrong first name, even though it appeared clearly on the label, luckily noticed and pointed out to me by an eagle-eyed friend so that I was able to correct this speedily. Imagine the catastrophe otherwise: the young man would have become famous under the wrong name, with my myriads of readers referring to him thus! He may even have had to change his name officially to the one my carelessness assigned to him in order to match his new-found fame, a cruel fate averted, thankfully, at the last minute.

As you can clearly see, even minor cock-ups can have devastating effects on people and their lives. Or, indeed, on their lack of life, as in hostile situations when one of the sides bombs the wrong target by mistake and, instead of the other side's arsenal they hit a suburban house, or instead of a weapons' convoy they bomb a wedding party. So a cock-up is not a teeny-weeny mistake, to be shrugged off after an apology; rather, it is bigger, a fuck-up (technical term, widely used, sorry!), something that could have been averted.

Do not think for a second that I am claiming there are no conspiracies, or attempts at conspiracies, happening the world over, only that in my opinion there are far fewer than we would like to imagine. Instead of dastardly plots we usually have bumbling incompetence or, as in my case previously mentioned, a momentary lapse of attention/judgement. My error involved a word - and no, they are not like weapons - so that the cock-up was easy to rectify even with an audience as vast as mine, but can you imagine if I had carelessly pressed the wrong button on a weapons control panel? Ooops, there goes Moscow/London/Athens or...

Human nature, it seems, compels us to complicate things and shift blame, to constantly see activity in the shadows, to look for puppet-masters and puppets. Fools and foolishness do not hold the same attraction.

Economou - The Wonderful Winemaker of Crete

Crete is, I'm sure, a beautiful place steeped in history. Its proud inhabitants (Cretans, not Cretins thank you!) are well-known for their independent nature, their zest for life and their fierce resistance to conquerors of any shape or size. What they have not been known for until recently is for their world-class wines.

Let's be clear here, Crete used to produce decent wines for glugging and excellent - and famous - grape alcohol (raki or tsikoudia). In days gone by Cretan wine was mainly sold in bulk or as relatively inexpensive bottled stuff, ripe and juicy but undistinguished. A new generation of wine producers has set about to change that, introduce modern methods in field and winery, and generally change the profile of their beloved island's wine; by and large they are succeeding, with some decent, even very good, stuff hitting both the domestic and export markets relatively recently. A number of domaines are now making and bottling individual, well-made modern wines largely from local varieties, and they're impressing the marketplace.

The curious thing is that there is a grower in Crete really making waves and producing staggeringly good, hugely individual wines that are interesting on any scale, anywhere. His wines are not 'modern' in style yet are faultless and true show stoppers through subtlety rather than brutishness, full of class, personality and character. He is a natural and organic wine producer, utilises mainly local, unfashionable grape varieties (his main Sitia red wine is made mainly from the obscure Liatiko variety and very old vines), low yields and traditional methods to produce his nectars. To top it all, this curious specimen is not a self-promoter, not a social media wizard, not interested in being a star - he just wants to make the best wine he can using the tools and ingredients available to him. And while his training has been in modern winemaking, the wine that he produces is closer to an idealised, fictional past. The late Haridimos Hatzidakis, the tortured genius of Santorini winemaking, even provided Economou with some of his Assyrtiko vines so that he could experiment with this and apply his and the local terroir's magic to this stellar variety.

With limited production and well-deserved acclaim his wines are not easy to find and may appear expensive. Don't be fooled, for any true wine lover they're worth seeking out and merit every penny for their multi-layered complexity, their unique flavours and highly individual character. Often wines like these can be what we call in the wine trade 'interesting' i.e. wines that you drink out of curiosity but rarely for pleasure - these are an exception!

Last night we were served a white 2009 and a red Sitia 1998 by my friend YT who knows Yiannis Economou, has visited him and loves what is happening there - and what's not to love? The wines on the night were both stunning:

1. The white had a light orange colour but was youthful and fresh with a hint of rosewater and nuts on nose and palate. I would like to taste it again in a few years time, but love it now; it is unlike any other Greek white wine, made from local grapes Thrapsathiri and Vilana.
2. The red, not perhaps from a top vintage, was relatively light in colour with little sign of ageing, with delicate cherry and sun-dried tomato hints, soft tannins and a long finish. And plenty of sediment, as befits its unfiltered status. In order to qualify for the Sitia appellation it will now have to include 20% of Mandilaria, which may or may not happen according to each vintage and Yianni Economou's judgement.

Economou wines are individual, inspiring, alluring bottle of wine to excite and delight any real wine lover. To me they are also exciting because they show that you can be guided by your passion and need not tow the line in order to make good wine, success being all about the product and its quality and characteristics - the Economou 'brand', such as it is, is a by-product of this.

Finally, I would like to close by introducing a young winemaker and his first wine, tried as an aperitif before the aforementioned gems. His name is Foivos Papastratis and for his first attempt he has produced a very respectable, well-made white wine from the much in fashion Assyrtiko variety in a blend with Muscat. Not only was the wine impeccably faultless, clean and distinctive, it was also very pleasant to drink, seemingly the product of a seasoned professional. My personal taste is against combinations like this, where a highly aromatic variety is matched with a more subtle, complex one, but that is by the by. There young winemaker has produced a wine of style and quality and is, most definitely, someone to watch for the future as he develops his individual style. A star is born?

The food we had was entirely secondary to the wine, so doesn't get a mention, but the wines were a meal in themselves. Every time I taste Economou's wines I am more and more impressed and, while I cannot afford to buy his creations in my present impecunious state, I will continue to drink them whenever and wherever offered them. And, if you know what's good for you, you should too.