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CALENDAR Sunday 12 December: Third Sunday of Advent (Year A) (Gaudete Sunday) Monday 13 December: St Lucy, Virgin and Martyr Tuesday 14 December: St John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor Wednesday 15 December: Advent feria Thursday 16 December: Advent feria Friday 17 December: Advent feria Saturday 18 December: Advent feria Sunday 19 December: Fourth Sunday of Advent


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Published weekly except Christmas. Periodicals Postage Paid at Rahway, NJ, and at additional mailing offices. U.S. Postmaster: Send airspeed address corrections to The Tablet, c/o Air Business Limited, 4 The Merlin Centre, Acrewood Way, St Albans, Herts AL4 0JY, UK. Annual subscription rate US$177. © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited 2010 The Tablet is printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, The Invicta Press, Lower Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH, for the proprietors The Tablet Publishing Company Limited, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY 11 December 2010


Independently audited certified average circulation per issue of THE TABLET for issues distri buted between 1 January and


30 June 2010 is 22,000. Volume 264 No. 8874 ISSN: 0039 8837


FROM THE VINEYARD


Christmas cheers N. O’PHILE


I READ that a Christmas pudding from Heston Blumenthal is on sale on eBay for more than £250. It’s not as if he made only one, or that it’s a secret recipe. He stuck an orange inside it, which is a bit of a cheat, since nor- mally you’re supposed to cut the fruit into little bits, so is it even worth its original asking price of something like £13? I am not going to sug- gest what you might drink with it. How about something to drink instead of it, and costing a lot less?


One thing you might have considered was a prosecco, and Waitrose has an interesting version, calling itself “aromatic”. I tried it and realised that you buy prosecco because it is not aromatic; it’s sharp and fresh. If you fancy the traditional prosecco, Sainsbury’s seems to have secured a large batch of prosecco di Conegliano, which should be good, and is cheaper than an aromatic £8.99. This time of the year there are lots of cut-


price offers, but you have to be quick. I bought a good bottle of primitivo di Salento in Sainsbury’s a few weeks ago at £4.99 and yes- terday it was back at £6.49. It was good value a few weeks ago, but Lidl also does a primi- tivo (from Manduria, but still Apulia) which is a little more “rustic” than Sainsbury’s, but much better value. If you want something a little lighter but


still soft and tasty, Lidl also does a very good minervois – yet another winner from the Languedoc-Roussillon in France. Both of those Lidl wines sell for around £4. There were four other wines from the Languedoc that caught my attention. One was again in Sainsbury’s, and the label (Longue-Dog, with a picture of a dachshund) was perhaps more interesting than the wine, but it was not bad for £5. Tesco also has a very good value fitou for £4.29, and this area has been growing in


reputation steadily over the past 30 years: there is lots of it on supermarket shelves now. The soft fruit of the grenache grape also fea- tures in a faugères from Waitrose. More expensive than the fitou and minervois at nearly £8 (let’s forget the dog), this was a much more lush and fruity wine, especially after being open for an hour, but I think I’d go back to one of the other two. The final example from that part of south- western France was a quite beautiful picpoul de Pinet from Waitrose. The label is Felines, and if you want a lush, tasty and complex white for Christmas, try this. The label speaks of “flow- ers, citrus fruits, aniseed and fennel” and I would happily go along with most of that. A real delight. Something along the flowery path, but costing less than £8, is a Chilean riesling from Tesco. It was at a reduced price last week, and will probably have gone back above £6 again. There are others that I would have tried, and might try before Christmas – Spanish pri- orat from Sainsbury’s at around £7. This will be a hefty (14 per cent) and tasty red if that’s what you want, but I think I’d go for a valpo- licella ripasso for value, or an amarone for smoothness – both of these I see in many super- markets now. Finally, if you have spent everything on a


Christmas pudding and want a cheap (£3.49) and fresh white, try Sainsbury’s dry house white. The only information it gives away is that it is bottled in Petersbach, which is good news, because it’s in Alsace. And it tastes as though it is. I am off to find a grapefruit to make my Christmas pudding.


■N. O’Phile is The Tablet’s wine critic. He is also a senior Catholic priest.


Glimpses of Eden


TWELVE BELOWfreezing at midday, and huddled in innumerable layers, I was reading the Russian author Varlam Shalamov. Written


during his inspirational survival of Stalin’s frozen gulags, his stories express the unfathomable endurance of the human spirit in the most des- perate of environments. Turning a page, I heard a fluttering in the eaves through the wall. The fluttering became a desperate tattoo. Opening the window, and craning out, I saw that a sparrow was trapped. Its usual hole blocked by ice, the little bird was wedged half in and half out. Unless it got free soon, it would freeze. The wings pulsed like a heart, but the trap merely tightened. Snatching up our longest


household implement – the clothes prop – I tried to set him free. Time and time again I chipped away, but the ice was too thick. Indomitable yet doomed, the feisty sparrow pecked with growing weakness at the prop, until a fatal frost formed over his eyes, and life departed. Just then a shout summoned me downstairs. A brambling had struck the win- dow, and lay bewildered in the snow. The second small tragedy of the day gnawed at me like the frost as I went outside. Too late – the finch was already frozen. With a sigh, I leaned down for a closer look. An explosion of wings in my face sent me reeling back. Stunned but not broken, like Shalamov’s unquenchable spirit, the brambling had taken miraculous flight. Jonathan Tulloch


36 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010


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