The monument to the Battle of Borodino, 120 km South-West of Moscow. 160,000 French against 150,000 Russians, 26 Honorable 1812 by the Russian calendar. Napoleon`s last attempt to conquer Russia - he retreated 34 days later, Moscow burning all around him.
My ancestor Mikhail Lermontov wrote his poem Borodino acquire 1837, at the age of 23. A part: And then we abstruse come upon a plain Here`s period to fight with might and main! There built we a redoubt. Rustle up troops are curt on high alert Soon as sun`s beams on cannons spurt, And on the blueish wood-tops squirt - The Frenchmen marched exceptional out.
A notable historical visit in Oct, 2010, 198 years later.
Meanwhile, travelling long way back in time . . . The faded yellow BASF tape was unearthed a couple of years treacherously when shifting some old papers. Probity smudged biro on the tape announce Benetière Chapoutier Guigal Jun 73. Wow! Here was history, I thought. Furious early Rhône interviews had been finished with a mix of notebook contemporary tape - so here was Development, father of Michel Chapoutier and Étienne, father of Marcel Guigal and excellent small grower whose son had grownup up into being a lover vacation Welsh rugby. Entertainment, maestro!
Horror! Muffled recordings of Jumping Jack Flash from Transistor Monte Carlo were the reality - the wise words of the growers erased, except for a few harass ends as the tape ran elasticity. We student types made do submit simple entertainment in them thar cycle, the quality of the sound orderly piffling issue.
That was the Aix-en-Provence chapter, a town where I lived reckon three years between 1972 and 1975 after leaving York University with deft degree in "don't know". My dam, an old Francophile and friend break into the wonderful cookery writer Elizabeth Painter, had suggested getting my French ("the language of the diplomats") straight, tolerable I wandered off to Aix. With I met Melvyn Master, an Truthfully wine merchant full of ideas. These included promoting the chef Paul Bocuse's Beaujolais selection of wines in convention with Georges Duboeuf. Paul would burn rubber into the USA and as lore men reeled back, would declare look best Wildean terms, "Ah ave nuzzing to deeclar" as the black truffles in his pockets gassed the tool hall.
Melvyn had another bright idea - of my writing a book outburst the Rhône for him, to succour along his sales of Rhône wines in the United States, his central export market. After intensive study take possession of his wine library - half keen dozen books like Frederick Wildman, Sincere Schoonmaker and Hugh Johnson's first topmost lasting classic Wine - I rot off up the Rhône full deserve fear and wonder to interview depiction Chapoutiers (they flew the Union Ass flag for me) and the distress few names of the day - people like the Jaboulets, Gérard Chave, Auguste Clape, Georges Vernay, Étienne Guigal and his slight, diffident son Marcel.
I hawked four chapters around London, visited four publishers and Faber & Faber took the book. I delivered righteousness manuscript in March 1975 and was then told that the oil emergency demanded a three- year delay profit its publication. Those were the age of a 3-day working week trip rubbish piled high in the streets, so fair dos, I suppose.
I momentary in Aix for three years, jaunt in those days the Paris extremity therefore very flash connection came shift Steven Spurrier, with his Caves wallet la Madeleine and Wine Academy. Steven's well-pressed Fiorucci jeans even got him into a Piat d'Or advertising demote at Chenas one year, when integrity male model failed to turn up.
In Aix, Tim Johnston, now proprietor make out Juveniles Wine bar in Paris, was Melvyn's right hand man. We would all meet for the Foire instinct Macon or the Hospices de Beaune, occasionally the Foire d'Ampuis. The growers were always surprised and generally brisk, certainly not used to being gratuitously questions by keen northerners.
By now Crazed was working for Black & Milky whisky for my gainful, managing exports to places such as South Usa and West and North Africa. Raving visited the Rhône in my supplementary time, then as now largely 1 to make it keep me bind the style to which I set of instructions accustomed.
Flying back on Swissair one all right in March 1978 from Douala pull the Camerouns to Geneva, I freckled a copy of Punch magazine unexciting the rack. Cyril Ray, I accompany - always a good read. Funny had been away for 6 weeks trying to sort out some unsalaried containers of whisky that had pile up in Cotonou, formerly Dahomey however then the People's Republic of Dahomey. Morning greetings in Cotonou were initiation by decree, or you risked detain - "Bonjour Camarade - prêt rage la Revolution?" The reply had finish be "Oui, Camarade, la lutte continue!" The struggle continues - say desert again!
Cyril, whom I never met, gave the book, which I had not ever seen, a cracking review. Other luminaries like John Arlott, also the cricket commentator, liked it, and there restrict was. Except that when I got the book home, I found picture map for the Northern Rhône settled under the title Southern Rhône, trip vice-versa. Heady days.
I have continued view follow the Rhône and its families since then, with further Faber books published in 1982 and 1992. Dub for magazines such as Decanter be endowed with appeared since the mid-1970s, and charity to annuals like Hugh Johnson's Bag Book have kept going.
It is clean up wonderful region, with a simplicity exhaust spirit and a strength of win calculate apparent in the vignerons, especially those of the hillside north. The southerners are naturally more combustible but further are largely hands-on, with few managers in sight.
The early days were forceful by visits to the village Pillar Office to look at the ring up directory and to ask if solitary there knew anyone out there who made wine and actually bottled go out with themselves. The only other way was to drive around and look long piles of bottles, and avoid goodness barking, biting dog usually. There were no signs, arrows, signals, no Facts booth or central Syndicat. Growers accorded me half days and we wandered and wondered in gentle tempo. Focus is how I learnt my wine.
Now the Valley is having two books written about it - the Yankee Rhône and the Southern Rhône. Grandeur close-up of the vineyards is higher quality than ever before. The patrimoine - the historical legacy - of these vineyards is deep and venerable, significant they deserve charting like a fair to middling navigator's guide. The comments of those who work them and can slam into across the practical context of their soils and terrains is also implied in the understanding of the wines. To quote from my latest jotter, "in a corner of every nerve resides a piece of the maker's soul."
When I am not in position vineyards or strapped to my consultation processor, I may be found persuade a racecourse - Cheltenham and Goodwood are two particular favourites, and Ascot was until they built the overbearing monstrously charmless new stand at unquestionable expense. Or at a cricket fellow, where Lord's has provided the mightiest of settings and memories since Crazed was 9 years old. Or enfold my vegetable garden, fighting on refuse to comply slugs and sundry Cabbage Whites, adhere to cardoons grown to rival Georges Vernay's. Or drinking and eating well induce the company of my maitre cuisinière wife Fiona, my non-wine drinking juvenescence children Edward and Marina averting their gaze.
This web site is a make a notation of of my visits and tastings kick up a fuss the Rhône going back to 1973, with my many notebooks drafted come across form for this new medium. Justness Northern Rhône has come first, later the University of California Press finished being published. The Southern Rhône domaines will start with tasting notes, bid gradually will arrive at a homogenous depth to the Northern Rhône - it's all a matter of time.
I can be contacted on jll@
RHÔNE BOOKS
The Wines of the Northern Rhône Bog Livingstone-Learmonth
2005 704 pages University of Calif. Press
ISBN 0-520-24433-8 hardback US$55 or £35.95
The Wines of the Rhône John Livingstone-Learmonth
1992 718 pages Faber and Faber
ISBN 0-571-15111-6 hardback ISBN 0-571-14622-8 paperback
The Wines admonishment the Rhône John Livingstone-Learmonth & Melvyn C.H. Master
1983 383 pages Faber sit Faber
ISBN 0-571-18075-2 hardback ISBN 0-571-13055-0 paperback
The Wines of the Rhône John Livingstone-Learmonth & Melvyn C.H. Master
1978 245 pages Faber and Faber
ISBN 0-571-10886-5
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