The enjoyment of that gay little wine – a reminiscence by H Warner Allen on his encounter with Moscato while climbing in Italy. How much more meaningful to read that great wine writer on the pleasures of his drinking than looking at some one pretending that wine can be scored out of a hundred.
Warner Allen’s words came back to me when I first sipped the Philip Schaffer ‘Juliana’ Pink Moscato N.V. Delicacy and refreshment equipped with a balance of sweetness and acidity with a low alcohol so the sweetness is natural.
Not that I am pretending that the Moscato is one of the world’s great wines. Just that after a hard day’s work in the Barossa sun I echoed the sentiment which Warner Allen wrote of back in 1951.
“The wines that one remembers are not necessarily the finest that one has tasted, and the highest quality may fail to delight so much as some far more humble beverage drunk in more favourable surroundings.”
He then left us with a memorable description of how a humble $10.99 wine like Glug’s Julienas, at the right moment, can rises to great heights.
| ‘On the hills above Alassio, on the Italian Riviera, there is a little col where two views meet: on one side the blue Mediterranean with a line of snowy Apennines on the horizon, and on the other the landward view, the enchanted valley of Albenga. It was a glorious climb to reach it ……..In the early March sunshine there would still be patches of snow lying on the upper slopes, and the cool breeze blowing from the Alps challenged the laziest climber to press onward to the summit, the Madonna della Guardia. In the valley beneath there lies the village of Moglio, and in it is a little inn. The inn-keeper grows his own wine and on the way the climber should ask him for a bottle of his Moscato. Consigned to a knapsack, that bottle should make the ascent. I can still see the rock, like a lion couchant, which just below the Madonna della Guardia throws into shadow a patch of snow, where the bottle can be buried in cold white refreshment, while the rest of the climb is accomplished in the swifty-increasing warmth of the spring sun. Thence one could plunge head-long back to the enjoyment of that gay little wine….and feel as one’s thirst was quenched, that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’ |
