Seasons Greetings

I had hoped I'd be organised enough to write some book posts between Christmas and going to spend time with family over New Year, but with only Christmas Day and Boxing Day off work, I've not managed to organise myself. It doesn't help that I've not been thinking about books at all, but a lot about what this time of year means, and represents, to me.

Like many people I find Christmas Day itself challenging, and whilst I used to enjoy the run up to Christmas, the current challenging retail environment makes that a big ask - and it's a shame. I like winter, the cold and the dark don't particularly bother me, but I feel increasingly separated from what I think should be the natural rhythm of the year, and it bothers me.

I've mostly spent the last ten days at work listening to people complain. Complain because some item they want is unavailable, complain about how much things cost, complain about how much effort it is to make things*. A small amount of effort is a good thing. As autumn turns into winter I've found Making mince meat, Christmas cakes, Christmas puddings, chutney something to look forward too**. I love the way the kitchen smells when I do these things, the slow pace they demand which lets me listen to the radio, read a bit, potter around, make lists, plan things, and most of all think about the people I'll be sharing this stuff with. That, to me, is the point of Christmas - a time to share, in the dead of winter, when community matters the most.

It's not just for December either - it's the light at the end of the tunnel of dark days, so gentle preparations from the point the clocks go back seem sensible to me. The way advent is celebrated in the colder parts of Europe makes perfect sense as well, and surely Christmas itself lasts until 12th night? And yes, if it was up to me there would be far more time off for everyone around now. One of the things I miss most about working at Oddbins is how slack January was as everyone swore off the booze for the first few weeks of the new year. However cold it could be in that shop (it could be very cold, we were meant to leave the doors open) and dull without a constant stream of customers, it meant time to re-charge, to gossip, drink endless cups of tea, skive a little, and tidy up.

There's a reason too that this is traditionally a time for ghost stories. The older I get the more Christmas becomes about the people who aren't here anymore. Which in turn stirs up all sorts of things (there are always tears in our house at Christmas because we all pitch up tired and on edge, sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes not). Sharing the sort of ghost stories that replace the genuine fears that lurk in the dark (fear of being cold, hungry, a lack of basic security) with ones you can begin to laugh at suddenly seems like a good idea.

Mostly though, and I know I'm middle aged when I say things like this, I miss the sense of general goodwill that I used to find at this time of year, which increasingly seems to have been replaced with a sullen sense of entitlement (retail makes you hate people). I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's okay to berate a shop assistant over an unavailable cake until they cry, but I've seen it done, and more than once. A little genuine goodwill and kindness goes a long way, so too, unfortunately, does ill will. Be nice to people, especially strangers. It's dark, and cold, everyone is dealing with crap, so why make it worse?

All of which is why I rather prefer 'Seasons Greetings' to 'Happy Christmas' - it covers so much more. And on that note - I'll be back in the New Year.


*Mulled wine, mince pies, and Buck's Fizz are top of this list, none of which require any particular effort. I might add that the threat to go to Marks & Spencer's instead is something I'm more inclined to view as a promise (just go), and seriously, how is opening a bottle of orange juice, or even squeezing an orange (god forbid) more effort than getting in a car, driving to another retailer, finding a parking space, searching for the product in question, and then queuing to pay for it?

**I like doing these things, I know not everyone does, and there's no earthly reason why they should.

Happy Christmas

Work is done, I have 2 days off, and I think I'm organised.  We'll see. Meanwhile I just want to say happy Christmas, whatever you're doing I hope the next few days leave you feeling content and relaxed.

Winter Tales with Highland Park Whisky

For the last of this years books and booze posts I've chosen a collection of George Mackay Brown stories - 'Winter Tales' was the obvious one to go for, but 'A Time To Keep' and 'A Calendar Of Love' are two other particular favourites, and as the same themes run through all of his collections, all are an equally good place to start.

George Mackay Brown is an interesting figure, based in Orkney for the majority of his life, his work is deeply rooted in the culture and history of the islands, and also in his catholic faith. I've found the full length novels heavy going, and have no strong feelings about his poetry either way, but his short stories shine for me (I've deleted a whole lot of exubarent metaphors from this space).

They deliberately look back to record an Orkney before oil money and technology radically accelerated changes in people's way of life and expectations. Here are the islands of his childhood, of his parents childhoods, and of millennia before that. He records the rhythms of the farming year, and an existence defined by the weather, the sea, and the hours of daylight. The stories don't just feel written, they feel told - some of them could be often repeated gossip, local legends, and just generally part of the fabric of island life. Part of why I ldon't be themnis because I do find them them comfortingly familiar and nostalgic, but there's more to them than that suggests - they're worth a look.

Highland Park whisky is another Orkney icon, and probably far more famous than George Mackay Brown. It's not the only working whisky distillery in Orkney - there's also Scapa, which mostly goes into blends, but they do some distillery bottlings (which are probably worth collecting, anyone who has done do over the last twenty years would have an interesting liquid history of a distilleries mixed fortunes).

Highland Park 12 year old was described as one of the best all round whisky's in the world by the late Micheal Jackson (not that one, but the whisky and beer writer) - and it is. Ignore the increasingly expensive and exuberantly packaged special editions (though anything reasonably priced in an airport is worth investigating) and stick with the 12 year old. The 18 year old is good, the 25 year old extraordinary - both, very sadly, now out of my price range (the 25 year old was never in it, but I wish I'd spent a £100 on a bottle 15 years ago, it's over £300 now and further out of reach than ever.)

It's the 12 year old that's the gold standard though, a whisky to measure others against, and undoubtedly a great all rounder. There's a touch of smoke and peat, but not enough to make it the defining characteristic, rich sherry fruit, and honey heather sweenes. Identify the elements of Highland Park you like the best and use it as a signpost to discover other malts. Or just enjoy it for the excellent dram that it is. For such a small place, Orkney has produced some remarkable things.

Waverley with Claret

When I was reading the introduction to Buchan's 'John Macnab' there was something about Buchan writing in the tradition of Stevenson rather than Sir Walter Scott. It's not the first time I've seen disparaging comments about Scott and how readable he is, and I'm not having it.

I won't deny that he's a man who will happily use 20 words where 2 might have done, sometimes he even makes a joke out of it, and I'll also admit that some of his books are nowhere near as good as others - but the good books are great.

So far my favourite has been 'Waverley' (so good they named a train station after it), which was thoroughly entertaining, still relevant for the sidelight it throws on British history with reference to the 1707 Act of union, and the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745, and in every way a tremendously influential novel. It's long enough to take a bit of time to read, and Scott's loquacity demands a bit of patience whilst you adjust to his pace, but it's worth the small amount of effort it takes to do that, and holidays provide the reading time to do him justice.

After spending yesterday considering the best clarets I've had, or can still afford, today is about the other end - the sort that are often labelled 'Good Ordinary' and come in under £10. Sometimes it's possible to find something that punches well above it's weight in this bracket (in which case buy a couple of cases) but the key thing to consider is that 'Good Ordinary' title. They're not meant to be special wines, but they should be pleasant drinking, smooth, soft, fruity, discreet (no blockbusting new world Cabernet fireworks here) and food friendly.

I'm wary of anything to cheap because of the way wine is priced in the U.K. Duty is a flat rate on each bottle, though the percentage of alcohol by volume will effect the amount that is, VAT goes on top of that - so if you buy a £5 bottle of wine at 13% abv, £2.91 of that is going straight to the inland revenue. After that there are bottling, labelling, boxing and transport costs to consider. And you haven't even paid your wine producer or merchant yet.

Pay a couple of pounds more and the duty and other fixed costs stay the same (the VAT doesn't, but you can't win them all) so the wine in your glass is likely to be much better, and at least there's the chance the wine maker will be able to make a living out of it (and the wine merchant too, we work hard, we deserve it).

Scott, who seems to have liked his wine (he certainly bought a lot of it) would, wars with France allowing, certainly have drunk Claret, and French wine is fitting to celebrate the auld alliance with Scotland (which seems to have worked rather like the special relationship we currently enjoy with America). There's something about these wines - for want of a better description it's maybe best called an old fashioned charm - which really makes me think of Scott too. The important thing is that he's worth having a go at, set aside a few hours, get comfortable, and give him a chance.

The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Elightenment with Claret

Just how magical you want this experience to be depends entirely on the wine (which in turn has a lot to do with budget).

The book is one I bought myself as a birthday present because who could resist this blurb?

 "This rich, fascinating anthology of the western magical tradition stretches from its roots in the wizardry of the Old Testament and the rituals of the ancient world, through writers such as Thomas Aquinas, John Milton, John Dee, and Matthew Hopkins, and up to the tangled, arcane beginnings of the scientific revolution. Arranged historically, with commentary, this book includes incantations, charms, curses, Golems, demons and witches, as well as astrology, divination, and alchemy, with some ancient and medieval works which were once viewed as too dangerous even to open."

Obviously I couldn't resist it at all. I see it as a book to dip in and out of, and one that should provide some useful and interesting context when looking at carvings and symbols in medieval churches. It should also fit into a wider interest in folklore, mythology, and fairy tales, though I'm not sure it'll help me answer the age old question of why so many people confessed to witchcraft.

I've chosen Claret (the British term for red wines from Bordeaux) for this book because for all the poetic flights a fine Pinot noir sends people off on, there's no wine I personally prefer to a really good  Claret. When it's a really good Claret it's also best enjoyed either with a like minded wine friend, or the sort of book which will allow you to concentrate on the wine. 'The Book of Magic' is a scrapbook of interesting odds and ends, and as such is easy to break away from, to appreciate what might be in your glass (or have a nap, or make a cup of tea) at regular intervals.

Specifically I see this as a book to go with the best quality claret available to you (or me), and for which I'm thinking in terms of champagne prices. I'm not sure if it was lucky or not that 20 years ago when I was really beginning to find an interest in wine it was possible to buy things like Ch Lynch-Bages at around £25 a bottle (£150 the last time I looked, and way out of my price range), but back then it was claret that I really fell for. It's a love that's lasted. Spend £20 plus and it's still possible to get something interesting, something worth tasting as well as drinking.

The tasting process starts with assessing the colour and clarity of the wine in the glass (colour can indicate both grape varieties and the age of the wine, if it doesn't look clear it may have to much sediment in it, or some more troubling fault, and the viscosity of the 'legs' that form round the fire of the glass indicate the alcohol content. Nosing the wine will tell you first of all if it smells clean (if it smells of wet mouldy cardboard for example, its corked, rotten eggs- to much sulphur, something like sherry means it's oxodised, very little smell and it might need time to breath, and if it's good - warm up a little.) If it smells good the next step is to make a note of what it smells like - this is mostly a way of helping you remember and describe the wine. A good claret will have black fruit aromas (blackberry, black current) and something reminiscent of cedar or cigar boxes and who knows what else in the mix. Most of what we taste is determined by what we smell so it's worth having a good sniff. Then taste the wine, swish it around your mouth, see what the tannins are doing, breath in through the mouth and out through the nose to get an indication of how long the finish is, see if those fruit flavours from the nose come through in the mouth. Think about it all for a few minutes, and then enjoy the rest of the glass.

Tasting (rather than drinking) is fun, even if you feel a bit self conscious about it at first, it helps you get the most out of the bottle in front of you, turns wine into far more than just a drink, and when you have a decent example of the winemakers art in your hands - well, it can be magical.

Melissa Harrison's Anthology for the Changing Seasons with Campbell's Rutherglen Muscat

I've been dipping in and out of these books all year without having read enough of any one of them at any time to feel ready to post about it. That's partly because once I've posted about a book I feel like I'm finished with it, at least for the time being. It disappears onto a shelf, it's space by my bed, chair, or in my bag, taken up by something new. I'm not ready to put these books away yet.

Melissa Harrison has done a fantastic job of drawing together different peices of writing to capture each season (George Orwell writing about toads in 'Spring' was the point where I fell in love with the series). There's old writing and new, things which will probably be already familiar and things which are not, excerpts that remind me I've got, unread, whichever book they originally came from and that it's long past time I read it. There's also an inevitable list of things I want to explore further. They're friendly books to carry around, both comforting and thought provoking, and I thoroughly recommend them.

Campbell's Rutherglen Muscat specifically reflects 'Winter', and maybe late autumn, to me. It's another sweet and sticky Australian wine, and those are winter treats. At least this one is easy for me to get my hands on (it's widely available in the U.K.). The lazy way to describe it is as being a bit like a mince pie in wine form. It's a slightly more evocative description than 'raisined' - images of dried fruit don't capture the lushness of the wine, or it's freshness.

I've been reading a bit about Australian dessert wines over the last few days (both reminiscing and exploring) and one thing I can't help but notice is how often they still compare themselves to European wines. It's not that there's anything wrong with describing a wine as being reminiscent of Vin Santo (as this one has been) but it doesn't do the muscat justice. It doesn't give any indication of how exciting and imaginative Australian wine making can be either, which is something else I've been remembering over the last few days. The range of wine I currently work with is good, but it's also very safe, so I'd rather forgotten just how much interesting stuff is happening, especially outside of Europe where the rules that protect quality and local identity can also prohibit innovation*.

Anyway, Campbell's Rutherglen Muscat is widely available, around £13 for a 35cl bottle, and an excellent introduction to the world of liqueur muscats. It's an excellent alternative to a tawny port or a  PX sherry (both of which share the raisin/dried fruit characteristics to some extent). It's very good with a cheese board, more than acceptable with a mince pie, and, yes, like Vin Santo you could happily dunk cantuccini in it (I certainly have). It's also pretty good on its own, and is, in short, just the sort of thing to come home to after a winters walk - or sip appreciatively whilst reading about someone else's winter walk.

*A subject for another time maybe.

Another Little Christmas Murder with d'Arenburg Nostalgia Rare Tawny

I've just written and deleted a long list of all the things I don't much like about Christmas (non of them being specifically book or booze related). It's a complicated, difficult, time of year full of contridictions, expectations, frayed tempers, and memories.

A comment from an Australian reader on the Pinot Noir post took me right back to my early Oddbins days; Australian wine was a big part of the Oddbins story, and for anyone of my vintage d'Arenberg wines specifically where a big part of our wine education. It's a source of general frustration to me that they're no longer widely available on the high street in the UK. This week it's been a very specific source of frustration, I'd pay good money for both a bottle of Footbolt Shiraz, and Nostalgia Tawny. They are available online, but I'm not available to take delivery so I'm doing without. Footbolt was the first wine I bought home as an Oddbins employee, and of all the things I could say about it, it's the fact that I've remembered it that's the most telling.

I bought 'The Nostalgia' that first Christmas and fell utterly in love with it, it's essentially an Australian version of an old tawny port, made using what sounds like a Solera  system (in the simplest terms small amounts of new wine are blended into older wines to replenish stock, so overall you end up with a mix that will have traces of really old wine in it but also the freshness of younger vintages), and mostly containing Grenache - not found in port, so no direct substitute is available. The result is a nutty, complex, wine with notes of spice, toffee, dried figs, and more. It's fresh, intense, layered, and altogether a very good thing. I do indeed feel nostalgic for it.

Vintage crime seems like the perfect accompaniment to this one, not least because the mood in both is deliberately nostalgic. 'Another Little Christmas Murder' is one of this years crop of reprints, complete with snow and country houses as well as characters called Dilys and Inigo, I have high hopes for it - though as the pile on the floor shows - I'm spoilt for choice when it comes to this sort of thing - which doesn't at all mean there isn't room for more. Winter is made bearable, pleasurable even, by the opportunities it affords to enjoy small pleasures and luxuries. Reading old fashioned mysteries and drinking wine like this tick those boxes for me.

Jeanette Winterson's Christmas Days with Champagne

Because so far I've failed to get round to reading Jeanette Winterson, despite good intentions, I put Christmas Days - 12 stories and 12 feasts for 12 days on my wish list. And then because this is such an attractive book I bought it for myself - some things aren't worth leaving to chance.

I haven't read any of the stories yet - there hasn't really been time, but I have been working through the feast parts which are turning out to be worth the price of the book alone. I hope I like the stories as much as the collection of food, memories, and thoughts that sandwich them, because at the moment it's that wonderful feeling of having found an extremely agreeable companion - the sort who (in the written word at least) could go on to be a lifelong friend. Not least because so far when I've found mentions of wine we're in perfect accord.

Anyway, this is another book that has 'perfect stocking filler' stamped into its DNA, and as I'd quite like to read it over the 12 days of Christmas (maybe that'll work out) there's an excellent chance there will be champagne around to enjoy with it.

I spend quite a lot of time telling people to spend more (and drink less) when it comes to wine, but champagne is sort of an exception. It shouldn't be particularly cheap - part of the pleasure of drinking it is in knowing that you're committing a small extravagance when you do so. To me that means spending somewhere between £20 and £30 pounds on a bottle that's probably on offer.

There are some excellent supermarket own label champagnes but when there are only a few of you they lack the hint of decadence that years of expensive marketing has imbued the grand marques with. So, for example my mother and I have a tradition, when I go to her on Christmas Eve I take the best bottle of champagne I've got, and we drink it. In the past it's been Dom Perignon, one memorable year it was Pol Roger's Cuvée Winston Churchill, Veuve Clicquot's Grand Dame was another highlight, but those were pre mortgage days. Now it will more likely be Billecart-Salmon, Taittinger, a Laurent Perrier, absolutely anything that Pol Roger put their name on, or Bollinger because they're all really good, all can be found (just) under £30, and all of them represent a proper treat to me. Taking the last glass to bed, knowing all the fuss is over at work for another year, and winding down over a short story, is something to really look forward too.

I love champagne, and love seeing what variations on a house theme different vintages bring, but I also really value the consistency that non vintage (NV) expressions have, unless you particularly want to spend the money on vintage there's no need to do so. It's more exclusive, but not necessarily better, or more enjoyable (although it can be). However, if you want a bottle with a date that means something to you, or something that has the potential for medium to long term cellering then vintage is the way to go. If it's for keeping consult a vintage chart before buying for an indication of ageing potential, and only do it if you have somewhere sensible to cellar your wine.

There seem to be more half bottles generally available these days which I see as A Very Good Thing. Half bottles make very nice presents (feel free to consider that a hint), they're perfect for 2 people to have when neither wants to drink a lot, or for one person who wants to drink just this side of enough, and fit the bill in terms of feeling mildly extravagant.

Arthur Conan-Doyle's Gothic Tales with Port

It's sometimes hard to remember that Arthur Conan-Doyle was more than Sherlock Holmes, so this really beautiful edition of his collected gothic tales from Oxford classics is timely (it truly is a handsome thing). Somewhat creepy (I draw the line at outright terrifying) stories are also a Yuletide staple (if it was good enough for Dickens...) though obviously they're also good for the rest of the year too. The advantage of reading Victorian writers (or in this case a writer with Victorian roots) in a short story format is that the amount of meandering they can fit in before they get to the point (I'm looking at you, Anthony Trollope) is limited. They're gateway literature to a full on addiction to nineteenth century fiction.

Anyway, as mentioned this is a particularly attractive book, and far more importantly it's got some cracking stories in it - the question is what sort of wine is suitably gothic? I want to write about claret at some point in the next week, and I don't think it would go amiss with Conan-Doyle at all, but I'm not sure the mood is quite right. It's tempting to go with one of the black wines of Cahors - very dark in colour, malbec based, with merlot and tannat allowed to make up 30% of the grape mix, and traditionally enough tannin in it to make it taste almost as inky as it looks. Popular in England in the 19th century too, and the inky quality surely makes it a particularly book friendly wine...

In the end though port seemed the best way to go. There's something as comfortably traditional and familiar about port at Christmas as there is in catching a repeat of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' at some point in the festive season. It's got the full bodied (positively bloody) deep colour that I feel a gothic tale begs for, and most importantly people often leave bottles open far to long, so gentle encouragement to drink it whilst it's at it's best is good advice.

Port should ideally be drunk within a few weeks of opening, for most of us it's also best drunk in extreme moderation - it's fortified up to 20% abv which is enough, especially on top of a big dinner full of other wines, to give the unwary a really unpleasant hangover. If you've gone easy on it the first night out though there should be plenty left to enjoy a glass with a good book, and maybe a nice bit of cheese, all the way through to new year.

Port comes in a number of styles - ruby port is the cheap and cheerful version, mass produced, aged in tanks, not improved by ageing in bottle, and filtered, and at the risk of sounding like a snob, best used for cooking where extra finesse isn't necessary. Special reserves are premium ruby ports.

Late Bottled Vintages are ports which have spent longer ageing in barrels (between 4 and 6 years) which gives them more of the character you'd expect from a vintage port, but at rather less of the price. The important thing to check for is if they've been chill filtered or not. Filtered means they don't need decanting, but arguably it strips some of the flavour and character from the port in the process. Warre's LBV, accepted as the best LBV on the market isn't filtered, but it does throw quite a lot of sediment.

Vintage ports, and single Quinta vintage ports, are aged in barrel or tank for a maximum of 2 1/2 years before being bottled where they will continue to age with grace, potentially for decades. The relativley short time in barrel means they retain colour and freshness, but because the majority of aging happens in the bottle they're going to have sediment, and ideally need decanting. This doesn't have to be a big job - just make sure the bottle's been stood upright and undisturbed for a couple of days before it's wanted so the sediment can settle. Then when you're ready to deal with it gently pour it into a clean decanter (or jug) for as long as it comes out clear. Use something like a clean pair of tights or some muslin to catch any stray sediment before it starts coming out all sludgy. At this point if you don't have a decanter, and don't think it'll all get drunk there and then, wash out the sediment from the bottle (don't use soap) and gently return the wine into the now clean bottle. If that chill filtered LBV sounds pretty good at this point, that's fine. The sediment won't hurt you, but it's bitter and unpleasant to drink.

Tawny ports are aged in barrel for a long time, and filtered before bottling, they don't need decanting.

'For Your Eyes Only' with a Negroni

I was once told that you have to drink Campari at least 3 times before you develop a taste (tolerance?) for it. I might have made it to 4, I still find it unpleasantly bitter, but we sell a surprising amount if it so I'm not necessarily in the majority on this one. Negroni's seem to be remaining a thing as well, so much so that pre made versions are now available from Waitrose (supermarkets wait a goodish go there timevto be sure something is going to be worth the selling space).

It's a simple cocktail, the classic version being equal parts Campari, gin, and sweet red vermouth. If it truly was invented in 1919, or earlier, than the authentic gin to use would probably be a slightly sweeter old Tom style, rather than a London dry. At least one recipe I've seen ups the ratio of gin, and there's plenty of discussion to be had about the brand of vermouth to use.

I don't really have the required patience to make anything more complicated than a gin and tonic at home, and figure that a pre mixed bottle of negroni saves on both washing up and recycling, so seems quite acceptable to me. I also find that Christmas is the only time of year that I find negroni's at all appealing - the bitterness makes a good counterpoint to all the rich food going around, it also stops me knocking them back particularly quickly.

I've been thinking about possible book matches for Negroni's (or Campari) all day with limited success - they speak to me of 1950's and 60's Italy and a dolce vita outlook - which doesn't particularly reflect my reading, but when I started hunting references I came up with Ian Fleming's 'For Your Eyes Only' which seems perfect.

It's a collection of short stories, which I always consider to be a win, possibly perfect for pre dinner reading with an appropriate aperitif... It was published around 1960 which matches the Mad Men vibe Negroni's give me, and Fleming and Bond do an appropriate sort of seedy glamour to a tee. I suspect that these days more people are familiar with the films than they are the books which would make 'For Your Eyes Only' a fairly safe stocking filler or token gift too - at least for those likely to enjoy the nostalgia, the action, or the drink spotting. (I admit to the latter, it's probably obvious by now how much I love details like that.)