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CALENDAR Sunday 13 November: Thirty-third Sunday of the Year (Year A) Monday 14 November: Feria Tuesday 15 November: Feria or St Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor Wednesday 16 November: St Edmund, Bishop Thursday 17 November: St Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious, or St Hilda, Abbess, or St Hugh of Lincoln, Bishop Friday 18 November: Feria or Dedication of Basilicas of Sts Peter and Paul Saturday 19 November: Feria Sunday 20 November: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King


■ For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to www.lms.org.uk and look under Find a Mass


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$179. © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited 2011 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 12 November 2011


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


30 June 2011 is 20,976. Volume 265 No. 8921 ISSN: 0039 8837


FROM THE VINEYARD


Just the Italian job N. O’PHILE


THE TERM “supertuscan” was first used by the winemaker Antinori in Tuscany in the 1970s. He had noted that a neighbour had pro- duced an exceptional wine by ignoring the complex rules governing the production of Chianti and produced his own red using mainly some of the components of Bordeaux reds, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. The wine was Sassicaia, and is now regarded as one of Italy’s finest. The price reflects this. Antinori’s wine was produced in the vineyard at Tignanello and took its name from there. The age of the supertuscan had arrived. Because they could not be encompassed


within the rules of Chianti, these reds were at first called simply vino da tavola, but have since been upgraded slightly with the classi- fication denominazione geografica tipica, guaranteeing that they are at least from a par- ticular area. Now they are on the supermarket shelves, not under the labels named above, but on the Piccini family label in Tesco. It is a smooth, fruity, solid red wine and something of a bargain at less than £6. After an hour or so it had come on and had hints of chocolate and liquorice on top of the plums and herbs. It is not Sassicaia or Tignanello, but better than a lot of the Chianti alongside it on the shelves. I said last month that I intended to look at some more Italian reds, and was going to point to a sudden explosion of barbera apparently everywhere. Asda has a very presentable example at a good price of £5. It is solid (14 per cent), smooth and well structured, “jammy” as barbera should be. Sainsbury’s also does a barbera d’Asti at about the same price and again it is smooth and mellow with a slightly more smoky aroma and a touch of spice perhaps.


Another red worth considering – and not from Italy this time – is to be found in Lidl.


It is a Rioja reserve (meaning at least one year in the cask and two years in the bottle) from 2005, and although not as good as the Co-op’s Muriel from the same year, it is very good value at less than £5. The Co-op 2005 is now nearly £8, and this example is smooth, fruity, robust without being too dense, and is even better after being opened for an hour. The label is Montecielo. But it was the white wines from Italy that caught my attention most this month. Like barbera, a few whites seem to have created a definite niche in the market, or supermarket. Most of these are well represented at Marks & Spencer. I was intrigued that it has both a Gavi and a cortese, since they are the same thing as far as I understand. Gavi is made from the cortese grape – I referred to this two months ago – but M&S has two white wines on their shelves, one called Gavi, from Piemonte, Quadro Sei label, the other a cortese from Piedmont. I don’t know why the lack of con- sistency, unless to give the more Italian- sounding label a bit more kudos. It does cost more, after all – £7.49 rather than £5.99 – and it has to be said there is a difference. The cheaper label is slightly paler and thinner (12 per cent and 11.5 per cent) and so you make your choice on cost. There are two other whites that I will have


to come back to, but I stay with M&S to go back to the beginning. It also has a very pleas- ant nebbiolo at £8.49. Not as weighty as you might expect, this wine is soft and fruity, solid and able to open up after an hour. Full price at £8.49, like all of the M&S wines mentioned, this comes at a 10 per cent discount if you buy six of any combination.


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


Glimpses of Eden


MY SON threaded the “apple capturer”, a canvas bag on a pole, through the intervening branches to the juicy-looking fruit


growing right at the top of the tree. One thrust, two, three … on the fourth, the stalk finally gave way and the large apple dropped heav- ily into the pouch. Standing in our neighbour’s orchard, we brought down the pole and reaching into the bag took a bite each from the Blenheim Orange, an apple that is easily twice the usual size. A deep nutty flavour … crisp hints of the first frost … a champagne effervescence of juice … You’d need a food writers’ lexicon to do it justice. First developed from a chance core thrown


40 | THE TABLET | 12 November 2011


over the shoulder in 1740 by a tailor named George Kempster, this new variety of apple soon became famous in Georgian Oxfordshire and beyond, with coachloads visiting the tower- ing tree and its gargantuan crop. Known initially as Kempster’s Pippin, the marketing department were soon on the case, rebrand- ing it as the Blenheim Orange, a nod to the residence of the nearby Duke of Marlborough. Our neighbour’s orchard is only 10 years old but already the Blenheim Orange tree is a spreading beauty, a monument to our neigh- bour Don who planted it with his own hands, and recently died. Don, we’re thinking of you as we enjoy the finest apple ever raised. And then again when the blossom comes … Jonathan Tulloch


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