Reviews (July/August 2009)
Wine
By Helen Savage
The vineyards near the fine old Roman city Tarragona in Catalonia were famous for sherry and port-like wines of dubious quality. One that sold surprisingly well in Britain was popularly known as ‘Red Biddy.’ The region also made produces vast quantities of communion wine. Maybe Red Biddy lives on at a church near you.
I have grim memories of trying to organise a tasting of communion wine as part of a live outside television broadcast from Alnwick marketplace. I tried to convince Gloria Hunniford and Keith Barron that it was really quite nice. Mr. Barron’s face betrayed that fact that he didn’t quite see eye to eye with me.
However, I have never tasted communion wine in any winery that would admit to making it, until I went to Catalonia a few weeks ago. There, in the swish, modern surrounds of De Muller’s cellars (where they also make very decent table wines sold by Morrisons – including my wine of the month), I was treated to a sample of heir best Vino de Misa, approved by countless Holy Fathers and blessed by a waist- thickening 100 grams per litre of residual sugar. It was the pale gold variety (let’s not get too literal with our imagery), raisiny, a little bit smoky (see Psalm 119 verse 83: but don’t try it at home) and was sweet (surprise, surprise) with a kind of orangey tang and rather a nice dry farewell. If anyone will sponsor me to go back with a van, I pick up a case or two for you.
I have ulterior motives for wishing a speedy return to northern Spain. I recently tasted wine high up in the hills of the Priorat that was so delicious that it moved me to tears. Who says a glass of wine is not a work of art?
I also met a man there who claims that his wine “has a mystical quality,” even “a seal of spirituality.” And it hadn’t been blessed by anyone other than happy wine lovers with sufficiently deep pockets to be able to afford it.
To be fair to Alvaro Palacios, his wine is more than a little above average quality and it is a worthy tribute to the Carthusian monks of Scala Dei, who from 1194 planted vineyards on the impossibly steep, bare slatey slopes of the surrounding villages. His best wine, which pays direct tribute to the religious order that inspired it: ‘L’Ermita’, is on the way to becoming one of the word’s most expensive red wines. Only two and half barrels were made in 2008 and it is rumoured to sell (even though it has not yet been bottled) for €1,000 per bottle. I didn’t spit any out. What would the monks have made of that? It’s very good – though not that good.
Another religious theme is evoked by one of Palacios’s neighbours. Carles Pastrana speaks so fast that it’s hard to keep up. Given that he speaks fluent English with a strong Catalan accent, you’re lucky to pick up one word in eight, so I may have got the wrong end of the stick; but I think he told me that he called his white wine ‘Kyrie’ because no-one believed it was possible to make a white so fine in such a harsh climate. He thinks that Kyrie means ‘honour’. Honour to Carles. Sorry Carles, you’ve got it slightly wrong.
His Miserere red, on the other hand (“for me it’s so hard!”) is a fair reflection of the effort required to cultivate these inhospitable but supremely beautiful slopes. For all his talk, I admire the man, and like his wines.
And in case you’re still wondering about Psalm 119, verse 83 and smoky wineskins, so am I. The distinguished biblical scholar who wrote on one of my commentaries on the Psalms that a wine might become ‘ mellow and desirable’ by being aged in the smoke of a fire was clearly either a teetotaller, or just plain bonkers.
Wine of the Month
Terramar Rosado 2008 £4.44 Morrisons
Deepish pink from Catalonia with a big up-front smell of cherries and rosehips and a soft, dry, but very fruity taste. Great with outdoor food. A bargain.
Book review
My Brave Boy Jack by Laura Close
(Published by Penny Print) All proceeds to The Bubble Foundation, which funds research into bone marrow transplants and buys equipment for Ward 23 at Newcastle General Hospital.
The book traces the story of Jack Close who, aged six, was diagnosed as having an immune system disorder which might eventually require a bone marrow transplant.
His mother Laura reveals the disbelief, horror and suffering involved in recognising that she herself was the carrier of a rogue condition which had not adversely affected her, but which now threatened the life of her son. Only one in 250,000 children were similarly affected, she was told.
We follow the family through the trauma of having their elder child tested, of discovering that there was no suitable match among close relatives should Jack need a transplant, and eventually of going on the Anthony Nolan Register.
The resulting experiences, of having a matched donor pull out at the last minute because of medical problems, of starting to raise funds for the Trust – more than £2,000 handed over before Jack had found a new donor – and of weathering the demands of living with a sick child who wanted to be well are all detailed in Laura’s book, as well as the eventual joy of getting the all-clear.
Laura says she has written the book in order to help others going through a similar experience, and also because the family needed to “move on with our lives”. She hopes it will raise more money to help children like Jack.
The book is available from Londis in Rowlands Gill, J.G. Windows in the Central Arcade, Newcastle, the Sea Field Caravan Park shop in Seahouses, and the Lintsford Garden Centre, Rowlands Gill.
Film and Faith
by L uke O sbaldeston
Gran Torino (2008): Certificate 15. DVD Release: 29th of June 2009
Length: 1 hour 56 minutes.
Director: Clint Eastwood.
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her & original cast members.
My former Psychoanalysis and Film Theory tutor, the late, great Professor Anthony Easthope, once said that he thought the moment in Dirty Harry where the eponymous Harry Callahan character (played by Eastwood) points his .44 Magnum into the lead villain’s face and utters one of cinemas’ most famous pieces of rhetoric - “Do you feel lucky, punk?” - was a momentous event in postmodernism in Western film.
It is an important moment – is Clint Eastwood really in on the joke, or he is serious? The master stroke that Eastwood seems to have been able to pull off, and one that proves he was in on the joke, surely lies in carving out a maturing career - unlike other stars of action films - where he has been able to take audiences with him on his journey, with characters we care about and about whose future we want to learn. Harry Callahan was such a character too – he was never a superhero, doing ‘silly’ action-like stunts, though he had his seedily heroic moments.
Gran Torino, Eastwood states, is his last acting engagement, and after this he will continue to direct films only. For this reason, and many others, I recommend the film immediately for those old enough to see it and those not upset by occasional violence, and a lot of racist name calling and swearing. Eastwood’s character, Walt Kowalski, is a Korean War veteran, is recently a widower (the film starts with his wife’s Roman Catholic funeral) and is generally angry with life for a variety of reasons, though the main ones articulated throughout the film are his experiences in Korea, and the deterioration of the mid-West neighbourhood where he now lives alone. The setting for the film is significant – here is an all American decorated war veteran who now feels the home and life he worked hard for somewhat undermined by his newish neighbours and the lack of relationship that he has with his own family..
At the start of the film, the funeral mass is being officiated at by a young, (un)fairly stereotypical Roman Catholic priest. The priest, Father Janovich, (Christopher Carley), has promised Dorothy, Kowalski’s deceased wife, that he will look out for her husband and try to get him to make his confession. Kowalski, being a hard-talking no-nonsense man gives him short shrift several times, often to comedic effect, and on one occasion produces some justified abuse – pointing out that he is a young, wet behind the ears virgin, who has hardly any experience of life, and asking what on earth he can tell Kowalski, a man who has killed at least 13 people in Korea?
Some of the drama ensues from this relationship, the most meaningful for Kowalski in the film with a fellow American, and it is, overall, a sympathetic portrayal of a priest, who turns out to be as dogged in pursuing the spiritual needs of Kowalski as Kowalski eventually turns out to be in pursuing the injustice done to his neighbours, a group of Hmong immigrants. The Hmong are Vietnamese sympathisers and combatants in the Vietnam war who fought alongside the forces of the U.S.A.
The relationships that develop between all the characters in the film, lead by Eastwood, mean that it works very well dramatically and emotionally, and although you quickly realise that it is going to end unhappily for someone, it does end well for Kowalski, who appears to find the release he needs from his earthly torments.
As Thao, the Hmong neighbour, and Kowalski bond, they make an unlikely but believable friendship, but Kowalski does not suddenly stop being racist, Thao does not suddenly become a man; they do not go and live happily ever after. What does happen is entertaining, very funny in places, and moving in others. If this is Clint Eastwood’s last acting performance on film, and you want to engage with something that brings a lot more theology to life than many a Church of England book about the subject, you must spend just under two hours with Walt Kowalski & co. and learn what seeking forgiveness and subsequently finding genuine atonement can mean – and cost.