NEW ZEALAND: France and wine

I was surprised to find that Michael Bassett, a member of the WAIS International Advisory Board, spends considerable time in Beaune, France, the Burgundy wine center. I wrote him:

I attended a summer session in Dijon in 1927 and we went to Beaune, where we had a lunch with unlimited red wine. My neighbor was a German professor who succumbed to it after drinking large quantities and collapsed. Which reminds me of the gravestone, in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral, of a Hampshire grenadier, who "died from drinking cold small beer." The epitaph ends: 'Soldiers, be wise from his untimely fall, and, when ye thirst, drink strong or none at all.' Dubious advice! "

Michael replied: "The Beaune you remember in your youth is a rather different place these days. The wall is still largely intact, but the town has spread way beyond it. Today, there is a very up-market centre ville, with an excellent small market on Saturdays, and wine cellars all around the town. There is even one selling New Zealand wine, which has become a thriving export product for us, especially whites (sauvignon blancs and chardonnays). I am told that some pinot noirs from the bottom of our North Island excite comment, largely favourable, in the home of pinot noir. But when in Burgundy we always realise just how small-scale is our viticulture: I suspect there is as much wine produced within a 25 mile radius of Beaune as there is in the whole of New Zealand!

One sees plenty of Germans on market day, but I haven't yet seen one prostrate from over-imbibing! I'll keep looking, and will remember your 1927 experience. Isn't Winchester Cathedral, grounds and building, superb? We were there in July, my wife to pay homage to Jane Austin - a grave site which, these days, attracts a steady pilgrimage. Didn't see the gravestone to the Hampshire grenadier; indeed, most gravestones in most English cathedral churchyards, these days, are unreadable. There is something cruelly defacing about the English weather, even for the hardest of stone."

My comment: I am perpetually astounded by my ignorance. We all know about Australian wines, but New Zealand? I must find if they are available here, and if so drink a toast to Michael. English gravestones are fascinating, and I must find out if that commemorating the Hampshire grenadier is still legible. In the cloisters of Winchester College there is a gravestone commemorating a schoolboy who died. It reads "Here lies [John Doe], who went to Heaven instead of going to Oxford."

Ronald Hilton - 11/05/00