Reviews (October 2009)
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Wine Review
by Helen Savage
Most winemakers say that the help provided by their oenologist is indispensable. Oenologists are consultant wine scientists who may give advice about almost anything in the process of wine production, from the grape to the bottle, but whose main task is to ensure that their clients have the technical know-how to make the best wine possible.
Getting the science right in the winery is essential. Although, in essence, fermentation is simple and natural, a lot can go wrong. Right through the wine-making process everything has to be closely monitored and managed, even by those who claim to intervene as little as possible. The busiest time of any winemaker's year comes just after harvest, when all the tanks in the winery are bubbling away. Sleep is a rare commodity, and hard physical effort is almost inescapable. The oenologist will probably visit each dog-tired client several times during these critical days to try to ensure that the right decisions are made and the consequence of any choice is properly explored.
There are a lot of choices. For all that winemaking must be underpinned by precise science, like in cooking, the real genius lies in using that knowledge as a basis to take risks and be creative. I think this helps to explain the difference between good wine and great wine.
Although the best wines are all made from fruit of the highest possible quality, influenced by the special conditions of each site where it's grown, it is up to each winemaker to find the best way to capture the magic of the fruit in the bottle - and to season it in a way that other people will enjoy. And there is no single best way of achieving this.
One example is the decision whether or not to use oak barrels to mature a wine. Barrels are expensive - roughly £500 for a 225 litre cask made from finest French oak, that may only have an effective working life of three years. And then the barrels have to be regularly topped up, emptied and cleaned: all of which adds to their real cost. I recently visited a Bordeaux winery, Château Haut Macô in the Côtes de Bourg winery, that goes to the trouble of selecting its own wood for the barrels it uses and then trusts a single cooperage to turn the wood into barrels that are as near identical as possible.
Their aim is homogeneity. They recognise that the very same wine aged in different oaks, treated slightly differently, will taste different (sometimes startlingly so). The next day, at another top-class Bordeaux winery, Château Laniote in Saint-Emilion, my good friends Arnaud and Florence de la Filolie explained their delight in having a variety of very different barrels in their cellar, each charred inside to a different extent, with oak from a number of different forests and made by different coopers.
They feel that they can make a more complex, interesting wine by playing around with all the subtle differences of flavour that a variety of barrels brings. Both approaches are valid; both produce fine results.
Thomas Herter at Château Segonzac is carrying out a more radical experiment. Instead of using oak barrels in which to age a white wine, he has invested in a few, larger than normal casks, made from acacia. He's chosen a bigger size because he doesn't want the wine to smell or taste too woody, and he thinks that the floral aroma of acacia will suit his wine better than the more spicy character of oak. In another bold move he has also chosen to dispense with the traditional Bordeaux idea of a blend and also produces single variety wines: Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec.
Bruno Chevalier at Château Haut l'Abeille pumps a tiny stream of bubbles into his wine at the end of its fermentation - a method of making a rich, ripe wine seem even more fruity. He's delighted with the results. Others are deeply suspicious and believe that such an intervention will shorten the life of the wine.
None of these decisions were made without taking account of an oenologist's advice; but the best wines of all, like Château Laniote, are made when technical advice and imaginative flair come together. But Laniote is, perhaps, a special case. The oenologist married the château owner. And they lived happily ever after.
Wine of the Week:
Château Segonzac, Premières Côtes de Blaye, 2007
Waitrose £8.99
Deep, purple-tinged young claret with a spicy, brambly, plummy smell and a lovely depth of soft, spicy, lingering fruit, with just a hint of oak. Great value and excellent with braised pheasant or roast lamb.
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Film and Faith
By Luke O sbaldeston
In The Loop (2009)
Certificate: 15
DVD Release UK: 24th of August 2009
Original Cinema Release UK: 17th of April 2009
Length: 106 minutes
Inspired by the television series: The Thick of It
Director: Armando Iannucci
Stars: Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison, Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Anna Chlumsky, Gina McKee, David Rasche & original cast members.
British television comedy was at an all time high in the 1970s – although there were some utterly dire shows in that era too. Fawlty Towers is still a benchmark for many people, for all it is quite unsophisticated in several ways. In The Loop is a film inspired in part by a British television comedy, The Thick of It, though no prior knowledge of that show is necessary.
The analysis of humour, what makes something funny, is an interesting topic, one that intrigued influential thinkers like Sigmund Freud. Why something makes us laugh, or the mechanics of how, can be important if you are trying to create humour. The result of any purported comedy must be that it makes us laugh. If it doesn’t, it’s not a comedy.
The why-and-how of the comedy in In The Loop belongs with the rather tired type of situations that Fawlty Towers did so blisteringly well in the 70s (along with other shows now considered classics, such as Porridge, Some Mother’s do ‘ave ‘em, Rising Damp, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and some episodes of Steptoe and Son.) British situation comedy seems often to be stuck in the 70s era of farce and embarrassment. One method regularly adopted in an attempt to move beyond this problem is to have well-spoken characters use torrents of expletives for comedic effect, something their 70s television counterparts could not do. But this is surely an error. Progress is not always achieved by pushing the boundaries of what people will accept.
The main comedy character in In The Loop, Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi, has a graphic and visceral gift in his use of profanity. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is more affected. If we had to watch John Cleese doing his goose-stepping from The Germans episode of Fawlty Towers every week, it would have lost its humorous quality eventually. So it is with profane language. Perhaps worship loses its transformational quality when it is the same every week too?
David Rasche’s character, a senior Washington official trying to bring about a war for his own political ends (the farcical idea which forms the central plot) provides the most accomplished performance, while James Gandolfini, whose talent for comedy was apparent in The Sopranos, is hardly taxed in his role as a desk-bound general in Washington. Capaldi aside, the British cast members simply can’t match their North American co-stars in terms of screen presence and characterization – you prefer the USA characters to their wimpish British colleagues, which is only to be expected. The USA is now several light-years in front when it comes to quality drama and comedy. The Americans may not be better actors, but they certainly have more exposure to good material.
There is not a lot that can be said about this film in terms of faith. It is a political comedy that tries to be a bit edgy in terms of its correctness, but fails in the attempt. We might have had some interesting political asides about faith (there is a vague insinuation that one character is something of a Christian fundamentalist), but instead we have an average comedy that features lots of swearing, only some of which is funny depending on the embarrassment it causes, or is likely to cause.
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Book Reviews
The Story of Holy Island: An illustrated history
By Kate Tristram (Canterbury Press)
Kate Tristram tells us in the introduction to her wonderful new book, ‘The Story of Holy Island’ that it ‘aims to stick to reality, as far as our sources can reveal it to us.’ Canon Kate has lived on Holy Island for more than 30 years, welcoming pilgrims and visitors for 20 years as Warden of Marygate House until official retirement 12 years ago. Unofficially, Kate cannot retire as she continues to be much in demand by pilgrims who thoroughly enjoy her storytelling and lectures, evidence of Kate’s background in education and her continuing ordained ministry as a priest.
Her book is a distilled, concise and clear narrative of the events and people who have shaped Holy Island to this day, giving the reader an exciting and stimulating glimpse of the extraordinary significance of this place and the resounding echo through time and history of the 7th Century monks of Lindisfarne and their successors. Kate introduces the key characters in the story and cuts through the mists and fog of time to what we can know based on research.
She retrieves the sense of mission, asceticism and deep spirituality of the Lindisfarne monastic community from any recent blurring into romanticism with its attendant commercialism of all things ‘Celtic’. In so doing, the reader may find themselves shedding a few unfounded fairytales but, rather than lament the loss of a fantasy, Kate reveals the truly inspired and – spiritually inspiring – characters beyond.
The mission of Aidan from Iona to Lindisfarne and beyond make up the first part of the book, followed by Cuthbert and the journey towards Durham and the Benedictine Abbey foundation. Kate writes about the significance of education in the monastery from earliest days and the teaching of girls, some of whom also followed the monastic vocation, including abbesses. I counted the names of 38 people from the Anglo-Saxon Christian mission and its time, who are mentioned both in context and in relation to each other. This is not a hagiography of one or two famous names but a carefully researched, clear and exciting narrative which keeps Kate to her intention of sticking to reality as best she can.
Kate has written a wonderful book which not only introduces us to Holy Island but to the panoply of early Christians whose mission created the legacy we inherit today. By visiting Holy Island we can stand on the shore or the Heugh and experience something of the wildness of the place in its rugged beauty and challenging environment. In the church and priory ruins is an echo of the prayers of the saints and pilgrims of more than 1300 years.
Kate’s book enables us to look beyond these later buildings to the heart of the foundation on Holy Island, St Cuthbert’s Isle and Inner Farne. She gives us the understanding to enter into dialogue with the Northern Saints and to find an energy and inspiration within us to continue their work: living out and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. She reminds us of the centrality of the Psalms and the Gospels in life and worship, which challenges us in our contemporary busyness to return to the resources of our faith. We rediscover the joy of the Gospel and the power of Christ to renew people and communities in the love of God, experiencing the dynamic Spirit. Kate achieves a ‘fusion of interpretative horizons’ in giving us this book, because she has built a bridge for us to return to the human and godly experience of the people of those far-off days, so to renew our vision for living out the Gospel in the present. This is, I suggest, an important book for the Church, not only in our diocese and region but nationally and internationally. If there is one book to put on your Christmas list, or for you to give away, this is it. Buy it and read it and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I was able to drop in on Kate for an hour and to thank her personally for writing the book – her gift dedicated to the People of Holy Island and a most welcome gift for us all.
£12.99 from bookshops (including the Post Office on Holy Island) or slightly reduced from www.eden.co.uk or Amazon online.
Gill Henwood, Diocesan Adviser for Spirituality & Spiritual Direction
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Why Evolution is True
By Prof. Jerry Coyne (OUP 2009)
Do you remember the Scopes trial? Probably not, as it took place in 1925. What about the trial under Judge Jones on the 20th December 2005? Both were concerned with the theory of evolution. The former had ended with the conviction of a schoolteacher for teaching Darwinism. That was against the law in Tennessee. But it was a pyrrhic victory which led to the establishment of evolutionism as a school subject throughout America.
In the more recent case, Dover in the State of Pennsylvania wanted to include a note in biology textbooks which implied that there were other ‘theories’ somehow on a par with Darwinism. Teachers and parents protested in law, and the church-going, Republican Judge Jones ruled that the insert could not be put in. But sadly, anti-evolutionism is now spreading to other countries, including Germany and the U.K.
The Natural History Museum in London has an exhibition this year which reminds us of the life and work of Charles Darwin which is well worth seeing. (It is 200 years from his birth; 150 years since the publication of ‘the Origin of Species’.) Down House itself, his home in Kent, still all intact, has been updated for this year by English Heritage, with new displays and a hand-held, multimedia tour narrated by Sir David Attenborough. We can walk through Darwin’s garden and have tea in his kitchen!
The museum has not produced a publication to accompany its exhibition, but has several books in the small shop there, one of which is a work by Prof. Jerry Coyne, an American geneticist. The book is elegantly written with good humour and without any jargon. In his quiet way the author summons up the whole range of evidence that adds up to verify the ‘theory’ of evolution by natural selection. It is a ‘theory’ perhaps, but it is not ‘only a theory’. In science a theory is a “well thought-out group of propositions meant to explain facts about the real world.” It must be testable and must make predictions that can be tested. When assertions and predictions are confirmed by many tests, then gradually the scientific community may say that we can accept this theory as ‘true’.
Since 1859 Darwinism has been subjected to these processes so that now “Evolution is still called a ‘theory’, just like the theory of gravity, but it’s a theory that is also a fact.” [My quotations are from his book.]
As we read, we understand why the author can say that Darwinism is a fact in any normal scientific use of that word. At the same time we learn masses of strange, sometimes humorous, things about life upon this planet of ours. For over a billion years most creatures on earth have reproduced sexually - so there must be some great evolutionary advantage in this - but we have yet to understand why! But does all this mean that religion and ethics are somehow overthrown?
The author does not claim to have a religious faith, but he does not think so. Even though his publishers have included on the dustjacket an enthusiastic comment by Prof. Dawkins, Prof. Coyne simply does not go the Dawkins way. He writes, “Nor must it promote atheism, for enlightened religion has always found a way to accommodate the advances of science.” Evolution is “not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can’t tell us what to do, or how we should behave.” The question of meaning, purpose and moral guidance “is outside the domain of science.”
Leonard Skinner
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