Reviews (February 2010)
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Wine Review
by Helen Savage
The Bishop of Newcastle’s decision to go to Australia led to the creation of one of the world’s great wines. Late in 1847, William Tyrrell left his parish in Hampshire to become the first Bishop of Newcastle (New South Wales, of course – and over a generation before Samuel Wilberforce became the first Bishop of Newcastle in our own diocese).
In 1854 he invited his nephews Edward and Lovick to join him. Lovick was ordained three years later and eventually, lucky man, became an archdeacon. Edward had other ideas. In 1858 he bought one of the last remaining blocks of land in the Hunter Valley (his uncle’s Episcopal palace was not far away at Morpeth on the Hunter River). This substantial estate proved to be perfect for viticulture. In 1864 he sold his first vintage.
Edward was drawn to two grape varieties, one for white wine and one for red – Sémillon and Shiraz. Hunter Shiraz later became known and loved as rich, powerful wine, with the unmistakable perfume of sweaty saddles, but it has many imitators and even more competitors. Sémillon, in the way made in the Hunter, stands alone and proud.
The Tyrrells are long-lived. Sixty-one year old Bruce Tyrrell, the present boss, represents only the fourth generation of the highly successful family firm, though the fifth generation is already hands-on in the business. Bruce’s father, Murray, was a legendary character, dubbed ‘The Mouth of the Hunter’, for his foghorn voice and forthright views. Bruce himself is no shrinking violet.
He is deeply proud of the blocks of old Shiraz planted in 1879 and 1892 and still in production, and although Tyrrells marketed the first Aussie Chardonnay back in 1971 (from vines grown from cuttings which they admit to have half-inched from rivals Penfolds), Bruce’s first love is another white wine variety: Semillon. Semillon, he says, is not so much as a passion as a “bloody obsession.”
Hunter Valley Semillon is a dry white with a uniquely Australian taste. The grapes are picked while still high in acidity and relatively low in sugar (very low by modern Australian standards), fermented very simply in stainless steel tanks, bottled without having even sniffed the inside of a barrel and then left alone. The crisp, intense, limey acidity ensures a long life in the bottle. The Tyrrells refuse to release their flagship Vat 1 Semillon until it is five years old, but it will happily age - slowly developing greater complexity for a generation or more. I tasted the 2002. It doesn’t taste like an eight-year old wine at all, but is fresh, with zesty lemon and lime fruit and a long, lingering salty mineral finish. At £23 (at Majestic) it’s not cheap, but it’s utterly original and worth it, and at just 10% alcohol it’s a refreshing relief.
Bruce Tyrrell reckons that he owns five of the six best Semillon blocks in the Hunter Valley and would love to get his hands on the sixth, Lovedale Vineyard, which belongs to the McWilliams family.
Having tasted their wine that comes from it, I can see why. The McWilliams have been growing grapes in Australia since 1880 and planted Lovedale in 1946. The 2005, with a very moderate 11.5% alcohol, is a gorgeous wine, more obviously fruity than Tyrrell’s Vat 1, with a buttery richness – not so much like lemon curd as lime curd (but bone dry). It costs £25 from www.everywine.co.uk.
For many years Semillon was not marketed under its own name in the Hunter Valley, but was wrongly and confusingly called ‘Riesling’. True Riesling was brought to Australia by German settlers of South Australia’s Barossa Valley and then spread to other sites in the State. The first Henschke arrived in Australia in 1842, but the success of the family wine business is largely due to the hard work of Cyril Henschke in the 1950s. In the hands of his son Stephen, the Riesling Cyril planted in the Eden Valley, a side valley of the Barossa, is one of the finest white wines from the southern hemisphere. Stephen trained in Germany as well as in Australia and the 2006 vintage of this glorious wine, Henschke Julius Riesling, has more than a hint of the racy elegance of a top dry Riesling from the Rhine. With an intense lime and lemon aroma it’s possible to see how after a very cursory sniff it might be confused for Semillon, but the petrol-like minerality and piercingly crisp, citrus flavour is unmistakably Riesling. It’s available from Laithwaites for around £17.
Wine of the Month
‘Prime’ Rosso Bello. Aldi special offer £2.99. An absolutely no frills chunky red from southern Italy, but is blessed with plenty of soft, chunky, fruit with a hint of leather and pepper.
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Film and Faith
by Luke O sbaldeston
Adventureland (2009)
Certificate: 15.
DVD/Blue-Ray Rental Release UK: 15th of January 2010.
Original Cinema Release UK: 11th of September 2009.
Length: 102 minutes.
Director: Greg Mottola.
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Martin Starr, Bill Hader.
Adventureland is a likable film with a likable cast, which is a nice thing to be able to say for once about a modern film. It is not a great film, but emotionally you can empathise with its central characters. Nothing is overstated; in fact, there is a little understatement sometimes.
The narrative is essentially taken from a personal story, that of the director, Greg Mottola. It is his recollection of the summer of 1985, albeit with some dramatic license. That summer was going to be dire – instead it turned out to be a transformational time for him, a rite of passage from the end of his adolescence to the start of adulthood.
Because the film is set in the 80s, there are some subtle observations about the culture that had started to pervade the USA, notably the affluence and the desire for material items and social status. A cyclical touch comes at the end of the film, when the central male character, James (Jesse Eisenberg) is let down by his former college roommate. They had planned to get an apartment together in New York, but instead, the roommate decides that he wants to be part of the USA “ gold rush” after being fed on the high culture of Europe for the previous couple of months during his summer vacation. Perhaps this is a sly dig by our former colony at the apparent ‘superiority’ of European culture ?
The theme that holds this film’s narrative together is well worn. Two clever, quirky, adolescents meet and fall for each other whilst working on the local fairground, Adventureland, thus providing a play on words as their adventures play out during their life together. The central female character Em (Kristen Stewart) has problems with her stepmother, whom she hates, and she works at Adventureland to annoy her lawyer father. James (Eisenberg) has to work at Adventureland to try to save some money to go to Columbia Graduate School to pursue a career in writing, after his own father has suffered a demotion at work. They make a nice couple, and the director sensibly keeps the traditional ‘it will be all right in the end’ element of the love story to the final shot, which is where it works best.
All the cast turn in fair performances, though Stewart’s is perhaps the best. Strong support is offered by some of the ensemble, principally the character of Joel (Martin Starr), and during some of the pot-smoking sequences, of which there are several, God is wondered about, though in a more reasonable and thoughtful way than some might expect in a film about adolescent love and angst. Theologically, in fact, there is plenty to go at for discussion in this film. There is some profanity, and the more adult theme of adultery is looked at by a continuing series of meetings between Em and one of the married characters, the consequences of which we only see in part.
This film works well as an entertainment, and it offers a credible narrative because it doesn’t try too hard. It is imbued with a sense of actual events, rather than coming over as some illogical, unfunny Hollywood script looking for a studio. And it is not overly sentimental – we can only imagine what happens to the couple at the end, which leaves the audience caring about the outcome of their story.
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Book Review
by Audrey Elkington
“Faith in the Fool: Risk and Delight in the Christian Adventure”
By Angela Ashwin.
“Start wherever you like and don’t go through the book in the ‘right order’ writes Angela Ashwin in the introduction to her recently published book. So I took her at her word. I read it backwards. Well not literally backwards. But I started with part 5, then part 4 and so on until I reached the beginning! Angela is quite right; each section is self-contained and makes sense on its own. It is more important to start with where you are, rather than with the given order of printing.
Faith in the Fool immediately caught my attention because I have long been attracted to the wonder of the paradoxes of our faith. Our faith is in someone who was both fully man and fully God. Christ showed his greatest strength in his moment of utter weakness.
He calls us to life in all its fullness, but also calls us to give up our life. We are told that it is the last who shall be first, and that leaders should wash the feet of those whom they lead. Jesus’ yoke may be easy, but we have a cross to take up as well. I am glad that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom!
Angela writes in short and easy to read chapters. This book cannot be read like a novel nor even like a text book, it must be read in a way which touches our hearts and affects our lives. Depending on the order in which you read, you will be introduced to, and helped to reflect on: the value of uselessness, the delighted fool, the problem of not being perfect, the uncluttered fool and the vulnerable fool.
So much of this is utter foolishness in the world’s eyes – but Angela helps us to see wisdom through God’s eyes. She has challenged me to think about how much time I spend playing, as well as how much time I spend praying. She has helped me to think again about the apparent foolishness of generosity and of forgiveness, and the real foolishness of over-dosing on guilt. She has reminded me that the mystery of Jesus Christ (‘the fool on the hill’) is that he should have won so much for us by deliberately going the ‘wrong’ way, making friends with the ‘wrong’ people and ending up in the ‘wrong’ place. Having said this, I confess that I still find it difficult to understand why Simon Stylites should spend 39 years living on the top of a pillar in 5th century Syria. Or why the holy fool Basil the Blessed should walk naked around the streets of Moscow in the sixteenth century. But perhaps I am still too concerned about what I own, and what other people think of me, to be a real fool for Christ.
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