Something special

Many countries around the world make wine, with some of it actually being jolly good and extremely well made. In this day and age the supremacy of Europe is challenged, even disputed, by some of the newer producers around the world, sometimes even successfully. Yet in my view if I had to choose the best, most interesting wines in the world I would look to Europe - and, more often than not, France - to provide the excitement.

Luckily YT agrees with me and last night laid on three vintages of the rare Jura 'vin jaune' wines for the enjoyment and appreciation of some of his friends, me included. These we tackled - and believe me, if you know vin jaune at all it is something one tackles, not an easy-drinking sipping wine - with great pleasure to accompany some Greek country sausages from the south of the Peloponnese and my family's erstwhile home town, Kalamata. These were artfully prepared and served with leeks, onions, peppers and potatoes, superbly enjoyable dinner bursting with taste and combining textures. Gorgeous stuff, if not exactly light and easy to digest, especially as I overindulged...

The three wines, all from the same Jura producer (Domaine Philippe Vandelle from the L'Etoile appellation), were from the 2001, 2000 and 1999 vintages, showing the overall vin jaune character but also showing the differences of nuance in each vintage. For those of you not in the know, the Jura wine producing region is small, in some ways old-fashioned and quirky, slightly cut off from the flow of the modern wine world - and all the better for it. They hold on to the good things from the past while at the same time developing superb wines for the present and, indeed, the future. Their chardonnays currently seem to me to be particularly good, though as the world discovers them their prices are changing, unfortunately rapidly climbing.

The wines last night were good examples of the style, complex and powerful, nutty caramel and alcohol. These are chunky wines yet at the same time have a delicate complexity, power with finesse, full of personality, scary to the uninitiated but an occasional delight to true wine lovers. Expensive to produce and idiosyncratic, these are jewels of the wine world worth preserving and enjoying on the odd occasions when we have the good fortune to come across them.

The next wine was a far more commercial, straightforward bottle, coming as it did from Bordeaux, an excellent cru Bourgeois and a superb vintage - Chateau Sociando Mallet 1996. This is a wine that I first tried in the 1980s, was impressed then and traded in, and it has been improving further. Last night's example had a sweet, rich, spicy plum and red fruit nose, a beguiling and balanced fruit and spice palate and a long, long finish - really batting at a very high level, charming and impressive at the same time, and a perfect accompaniment to the cheeses we were served - what else, you might say, from YT.

Then came dessert with ice cream, chocolatey bits and pieces and a green Chartreuse from those skilful monks of the Carthusian Order, who have been producing their elixirs since 1737 for the enjoyment of all, non-catholics and irreligious individuals included. This is a sweet, spicy, herbal liqueur, a touch medicinal in character and, in its green form, quite strong in alcohol (55%), rich but not cloying, a unique, strong and enjoyable digestif. I have tasted it several times in different form and I am always surprised at how much, after the initial 'gosh it's sweet and herby' reaction I really, really enjoy it. This doesn't change whether it's served on its own or as an accompaniment to something...yum!

To those of you who feel that France and its wines are past it, think again; the best in wine and gastronomy is still largely to be found here, despite the changes everywhere, positive and negative.

To those of you who think I'm incredibly lucky to be able to taste wonderful stuff time and again I have only one thing to say: you are absolutely correct!

2020 or something

Well, it's here, this crazy date that seemed so remote when I was a child, featuring in futuristic prediction TV shows and novels pretending to know and understand what was to come. So many impressive ideas appeared and seemed like sensible predictions, only to be consigned to the 'daft ideas of history' bin along the way.

In fairness 2020 is only one of the dates used - and there were many - but the most attractive, symmetrical one, perhaps, and a very nice one it appears to be. And now it's here, with the first month nearly at an end and the days growing longer.

But what of our world, which is still without air scooters, fishbowl helmets and the like, even without aliens as far as we are aware (though I am suspicious of a couple of the neighbours where I'm currently living...)? How has it evolved and where will it be after this year?

For one the world seems like a very humdrum progression from, say, 1960; there is very little that is truly revolutionary and unrecognisable, for all the amazing technology surrounding us. Cars still have four wheels and function in a similar fashion to the contraptions of the time, if far more efficiently, with electric vehicles perhaps the only major differentiation, with the same being largely true of motorbikes, even though some of today's machinery would have left the younger me salivating; the principle is largely the same, but evolved.

Our homes equally are more advanced but easily recognisable and fairly similar, even if their equipment is far superior - there are very few 'space pod' type homes around - with a simple layout. Fashions may affect our clothes and personal stuff but they too wouldn't completely confuse a visitor from the previous century, apart from yes, computers and their power, which have given rise to all sorts of convenient and fun gimmicks but little that is essential to humankind's existence or, indeed, survival. The i-pad (or similar) is fun and even useful, true, but not really life-changing if we choose to be honest.

Look around you with an open mind, then go back to 1960 either in your memory if, like me, you are an aged creature, or in archives and their photographs. Many of the clothes we wear today are similar if not identical, furniture also, though mass production has provided us with lighter materials, sleeker designs and cheaper prices.

Under the surface a lot has changed, of course, mainly for the better. The 'futurists' of my childhood, however, imagined a radically different world which has failed to appear; in many ways I am grateful for that. Perhaps our children will go around with fishbowls on their heads and travel to the Planet Zog (or wherever) for a holiday or, indeed, to work!

The true 'Masters of the Universe'

In the crazy atmosphere of 1980s New York, so graphically depicted in the novel 'Bonfire of the Vanities', people made ludicrously huge sums of money gambling with money belonging to others on the financial markets. These individuals not only didn't realise that their rewards were higher than any  proper compensation for what they were doing, but they considered that they were taking risks and so deserved every penny. In those cocaine-fuelled days they regarded themselves as 'Masters of the Universe', important, deserving people.

Oh, how we laughed in the late eighties when their make-believe world crumbled along with their egos. As their clever but ultimately flawed schemes failed one after the other, some were fired and others demoted; a small number who had, even by the financial professions lax moral standards, behaved badly even went to prison for a while. And we naive people on the outside expected their world to cleanse itself and start again.

Ha! No sooner had the dust settled and they were at it again, different individuals perhaps but with the same exaggerated idea of their importance, equally dodgy 'investment' schemes and fresh sales patter. These snake oil salesmen of our times, clever admittedly and emboldened by the realisation that hardly anyone, themselves included, truly understood their schemes, went on the rampage again cloaked in the respectability provided by their 'Banking' habitat. Passionate evangelists of their schemes, they told everyone that they were not like the previous - failed - eighties mob, they were the real deal, the true 'Masters of the Universe'. Why, they worked so hard and risked so much just for a measly few dollars (millions were, perhaps, implied but not always mentioned), out to provide a much-needed service helping their fellow humans have a better life.

It all went bad again, of course, as reality caught up with the clever schemes and demolished them and all that went with them. Once again customers paid the ultimate price, though of course some of the 'wizards' also found themselves unneeded and, more importantly, unwanted. Yet there were tears and frustration at the unfairness of it all, how the world was unkind and refused to recognise their talents just because of a minor blip. Many of the those involved still saw themselves as 'Masters of the Universe', albeit unfairly and temporarily demoted.

Fast forward to today, when I read on the BBC website that the toddler son of an Australian firefighter, who lost his life trying to protect others in the current bushfires, was given his father's medal for bravery; another toddler is due to receive a similar award next week for his fallen father. Or go back to so many rescue crews who have lost their lives trying to save others or, indeed, imagine the unimaginably brave 9/11 emergency crews who raced to help their stricken city, with so many subsequently paying the price for their heroism. There are similar incidents everywhere in the world, every single day, of people risking everything to help others, sometimes paying the ultimate price. We reward these people with an everyday salary and a pat on the back (or a medal) for their bravery.

If we are in need we expect the emergency services to rush to our aid disregarding any peril in their way, seeing that as part of their job and not thinking much about what they do unless we live through their heroism ourselves. They risk their lives for us but we regard financial operators as more important and reward them accordingly, regarding them with awe and envy, the emergency services as just people doing their jobs.

We're crazy. The important people in this, the true 'Masters of the Universe' if we can ever give such a title to human beings, are the members of the emergency services willing to risk even their lives for the rest of us. We should revere, appreciate and honour them, not just posthumously, and strive to help make their jobs and lives easier by being considerate - they deserve as much.

Oooh la la!

Sorry chaps, dear readers, everyone, but yesterday I had a really great afternoon, having been invited to a wonderful lunch by my kind and generous friend YT. Lots of fine wine and a great digestif defined a very fine lunch, fully orchestrated by our friend, the multi-talented chef Michalis Dounetas at his Wood Restaurant.

Wood is primarily a meat restaurant and this was a red wine afternoon, mainly. The food was personally prepared or stewarded by the chef and was pretty impressive, with every course being spot-on and perfectly matched with the wines, all of them; this is, after all, one of YT's great talents. In any case the wine was so amazing that it would have been able to combine with anything, and even more so with the great productions of the Wood kitchen, unfussy, intelligent and bursting with flavour.

All the eleven attendees were wine people of some sort, from the professional (yes, loyal reader, I still belong there, just!) to the amateur but keen wine lover end of the spectrum, and all were friends with YT; most of us were also friends, primarily through our shared love of wine. The bonhomie was palpable, the enthusiasm also, as wine after wine was presented, tasted, combined with food, dispatched and dissected

Before you get the idea that this was just a group of guys getting pissed on a Saturday afternoon, just with a better quality of wine, you could not be more wrong. Sure, by the end of the afternoon I had had plenty to drink and eat, as had all present, but we were not rowdy, not loud and abusive, not combative. Wine lovers are not die that and we were all respectful of the good food, the great wines, the kindness of our host and, of course, each other; it was a wonderful, relaxed but extremely pleasurable afternoon.
The food, of which only two photos are included, was up to the task of accompanying this truly outstanding collection of southern French red wines. It was also shamelessly meat-centred, as is the restaurant itself, which prides itself on the sourcing of its ingredients. We ate:
Carpaccio of Greek beef, slightly spicy, with marinated vegetables - superb.
Mushroom risotto, lamb, graviera (greek cheese) foam - saltier than I would like but full of flavour and excellent with the trio of wines selected.
Ragout of Greek black pig with a celeriac puree - for me the dish of the day, outstanding, subtle layers of flavour and refinement out of essentially a simple country dish.
Filet of beef in a pepper sauce - simple, tasty, elegant and not over-peppered, spot-on.
Duet of chocolate mousse - palate cleansing and pleasant, if for my taste lacking intensity, excellent with an espresso or two...
But this lunch was all about the wine and the amazing intensity and variety of flavours in southern French reds... so naturally we started with a white wine, Vin de Voile 1997 from R&B Plageoles, Gaillac, which was delicately nutty, complex and long, not unlike a light version of an amontillado sherry.
Each of us had three glasses for three different red wines, so we could taste and compare almost as we saw fit. Of course ideally we would have had six different glasses, but in a busy restaurant this is not realistic, with our simple rotation system working very well. KL (Master of Wine) set the running order and off we went in pursuit of greatness. And there was lots of it around, in no particular order:
Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1998, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe 1998 from a magnum - rather ethereal, majestic ripe and complex nose, lots of ripe red fruit, palate full and complex, long but a bit hard on the finish.
Domaine de Trevallon 1990, from further south (Baux de Provence), older, a stunning still-young wine, big and chunky (hello cabernet sauvignon!) with a hint of bitterness, clean and intriguing, for me the best in standing up to the lamb.
Cornas-Reynard 1999, Domaine Thierry Allemand from a magnum, one of the top wines of this area, round and rich, ripe and ready, surprisingly without hard edges.
Hermitage 1995 Domaine J.L. Chave, explosive nose full of red fruit, apples, violets, a big wine of complexity, ripeness and style, balanced and classy. A definite wow!
Mas de Daumas Gassac Cuvee Emile Peynaud 2001, this jewel of a wine from the Languedoc either was going through an awkward phase or suffered in a line-up with more juicy, more exuberant Rhone wines, this being 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. A very fine wine indeed unfairly treated?
Cote-Rotie 1999, Domaine Burgaud - Oooops, have mislaid my note on this, sorry! From refresher discussions I believe it was rich and untypical, with a pronounced minerality.

For our finish, we were fortunate enough to have a rare find, an old distillate from a domaine long consigned to history, vieux marc du Beaujolais 1949 from Domaine du Pinay et du Vivier. This had an old-fashioned rustic/refined character with a massively alcoholic nose, aggressively chunky and powerful palate, long and intriguing - woof!

To say the occasion was remarkable is a simple statement of fact, hugely enjoyable a wretched understatement. For all of us there it was also an education.

.

Missing the point?

This was written about ten days ago, so interpret paragraph four accordingly, please!

Sitting with tears in my eyes I listen to a few stories of individuals whose lives have been turned upside down by the continuing saga of Brexit; this off the BBC website on my computer, while thousands of miles away from Britain. Am I just a sentimental, soppy old man or what? For whom the tears?

The whole sorry mess that remains unresolved three and a half years after David Cameron's ill-thought out and badly executed referendum is a blight on many ordinary people's lives, has created huge uncertainty and generated a lot, a LOT, of nastiness and negativity aimed left, right and centre at whoever appears to be a legitimate target.

Politicians deal in concepts and grand ideas, deep-sounding and calculated to move their audience in the utterer's desired direction. They either don't think of the results on real folks, the living, breathing people that populate our planet or - much worse but equally probable - they don't care so long as they achieve their target. Emotional manipulation is their stock-in-trade, no thought given to those hurt.

Boris Johnson has received his reward for his treacherous behaviour over Brexit and has become Prime Minister of the UK on the basis of what, exactly? His performance as Foreign Secretary was hardly distinguished, his demeanour is shifty and unstatesmanlike, his private behaviour poor - were it not for the fact that his main opponent in the forthcoming election (Jeremy Corbyn) is an old-style communist who dreams of returning the UK to the 1970s, even publicly stating that life was good then, BoJo would have been laughed at and given a drubbing.

Worst of all, Mr. Johnson and his ilk care not at all for the people whose lives they are playing with: not just the EU throng working hard in the UK to keep things like agriculture and the NHS afloat, but all the Brits living elsewhere in Europe, soon to be disenfranchised from their environment, lame duck victims of political games. This is not just about slogans like 'taking back control', nebulous and untruthful, it is about people, individuals, you and me and all the others.

I have a friend who dreams of returning Athens to its ancient city state condition, demolishing the monstrosities of the modern world and strolling around the unspoilt environment of two and a half thousand years ago, subject to the ancient Greek ideals. Of course he knows this is a pipe dream, that time does not flow backwards, that life flows ever onwards, and smiles when tackled, but preserves his dream of the ideal world in his mind. Still, going around the Athens of today he uses the modern tools available to him now.

For reasons that I cannot quite understand we are bringing back nationalistic, jingoistic behaviour and  a mode of thinking and behaving that we thought had been discarded after WWII. The victims then were countless individuals sacrificed on the altar of perverse ideology, of systems, of central control, of horror; this is not a scenario the world should be considering revisiting for any reason at all. Look to the individuals, hear their stories, make their lives better and the whole benefits, we all gain in the long term.

Duh!

Greek bureaucracy - an unstoppable force?

The Greek economy is struggling to emerge from a decade-long crisis that has left the country financially destitute, its private sector in tatters, especially after the previous government proved ideologically unable to support most private endeavour. A new government, supposedly eager to modernise and develop things to enable the private sector to survive, even thrive, and hence contribute properly to the rebuilding of the Greek economy, is making all sorts of encouraging noises.

And, let's be fair, certain things have changed for the better even in the midst of the crisis: private companies, for example, are no longer required to publish annual accounts in several newspapers, national, financial and local, thus wasting several thousand euros in a fool's errand, there to support the press but providing very little for the benefit of either the companies or anyone seeking to learn more about them.

A few years ago and in order to simplify things for everyone concerned the government of the day - in fact the previous centre-right New Democracy government, deep in the economic meltdown for which they were partly responsible - created a centralised authority for all Greek limited companies of all variants to be registered, submit annual accounts and all changes to their composition and status; they based this - where else - in central Athens, co-housing it with the Athens Chamber of Commerce and making it a one-stop service for most company information and certification.

All of which sounds great if it wasn't for the fact that, in typical Greek fashion, this new organisation  also endorses a significant amount of bureaucracy, most of it - to my eyes anyway - totally without benefit and entirely unnecessary. For example, I had to pay a ten euro fee in order to be issued with a certificate of sorts. At the till the cashier printed a receipt on his printer in two copies, then proceeded to stamp and sign them before handing them over to me to present at a counter ten metres away... why? Also, before getting any sort of document ordered, one needs to fill in the relevant paper application form (many different forms exist, of course, depending on what is needed), sometimes rather complex, which then is stamped and processed. It is rare for any certificate or copy to be available on the spot, with a week being the normal waiting period as far as I could see. And I could go on...

Don't get me wrong, it feels and is more efficient than a normal Greek office manned by civil servants, with the staff unfailingly polite and quite helpful. Yet this - supposedly modern - business friendly centre is run using the old bureaucratic systems, with lots of bits of paper that need to be stamped, signed and then shuffled around, creating useless actions and lost time. It seems that even when we come up with a bright idea that cuts costs and makes the system more efficient we have to burden it with unproductive, needless paperwork.

Successive governments have prattled on about needing foreign investment and how they are aiming to attract it. I can tell them for free that unnecessary, silly, costly bureaucracy is not the way, no, really!

Civil disobedience - a new olympic sport?

Dear reader,  the regular one, the one sort of upset after reading my previous post on civil disobedience but lacking the energy to write in and tell me off, wait until you read this one! Because events the world over constantly overtake me, making me angry and disappointed in equal measure at different times, I want to say a bit more on this subject while I'm still upset in one way or another (I wrote all this some time ago, but only decided to burden you with it now...!).

Let me get the olympic sport bit out of the way first : if civil disobedience can be regarded as a sport, it could be a new form of pentathlon, more up-to-date and ready to appeal to current young people. It contains everything, from throws (ah, those lovely molotov cocktails, just need to get a couple of standard sizes and we're there) to modern combat (batons and thick staves needed, again a standard needs to be established and shields outlawed), adding running with two groups (one running ahead and a chasing group a few seconds behind), weightlifting in the form of ripping out and lifting above shoulder level paving stones and other things, progressively heavier (and hopefully causing more and more damage to adjacent buildings and whatever else handy), a wrestling contest completing the challenge, perhaps similar looking to an arrest by security forces, even ending with a handcuffing to signify a winner.

The modern Olympic Games have become a multi-cultural money festival, where multinational companies compete to pour in money and showcase their name to the world. They bear no resemblance to the Olympic Games that dominated life in Ancient Greece, rooted in competition for glory and a laurel wreath, but involving no money. Today the Games are all about a show - live, as well as the hugely valuable television coverage - and all that goes with it, so that many different new sports seem to be considered all the time in order to add viewers. The main justifications I hear for proposing a new 'sport' is that it involves great difficulty in its execution - wow, like eating an ice-cream cone while hanging upside down from a chandelier, say? - and that it has a 'following'!

That's where Civil Disobedience can step in, natty yellow vests everywhere - or, indeed, the preferred sponsor's colours - adding a splash of much needed colour, not to mention the odd explosion! Think about it: the Olympic Games will get a wonderful new sport, adding variety, the streets can return to their previous peaceful existence once proper training facilities are built and, as an extra bonus, we get to see the people involved without hoodies, as they will want to claim their prizes and things. And more and more young people will want to take part, keeping them off the streets but having fun and, potentially, winning Olympic medals!

A winner plan all around, me thinks!