The World at War
As the year 2023 draws to a close, the world is at war in so many places. Our world is also more deeply divided than I’ve seen in my lifetime. Not just in the USA, where opposing forces seem to occupy different planets, but also in Europe where populist politicians are fanning the old flames of hatred.
Refugees from many war zones are the hapless subjects too often, and always seem to make ready scapegoats. Rational, civil discourse has become a rare experience. Instead we get insults, rants and diatribes, wedges pushed into soft underbellies where fear doubt and uncertainty live, missiles from hefty armories hurled across the trenches of deep divisions.
Civil Discussion – Innocent Victim
Brian M., one of our long term subscribers summed it up this way:
‘Civil discussion was an early victim of global warming. Later victims were LGBTQ+, The Voice, The Middle East and others.
These subjects can no longer be discussed rationally among friends, without polarity, emotion, umbrage, and even anger endangering the friendships.
So, important matters are simply not raised, among people who like and respect each other. We retreat to trivia and small talk.
A few public voices fist it out in the media, and politicians vacillate, but we stay quiet.
This is not how it should be.
If something can’t be discussed or criticised, it can’t be valued.’
I think it’s going to take a lot of hard work to restore civil debate as the norm.
Wine as a Retreat
A few subscribers have politely suggested that I should stick to the subject of wine and food. We used to have civil discussions over scrumptious dinners and seductive wines. These days we discuss the wine and food, because it’s safer. And travel and other stuff that’s harmless.
I write about wine and food most of the time but this website is a free speech zone. We launched Muscles & Marbles late in 2023, a resource for boomers who want to stay fit and health; boomers who want to stay out of hospitals and nursing homes.
It’s a place where we share the latest research on health, and blow up many of the entrenched medical myths that have turned this once great sporting nation into one of the world’s fattest and sickest.
Here’s a brief but poignant example of the vital research we share: ‘Can Too Much Information Harm Patients?’ an excerpt from Scientific American, written by cardiologist Eric Topol.
And here’s a post on the dangers and benefits of drinking red wine: Red Wine: Cluster Bomb or Fountain of Youth?
Stories as a Retreat
Great novels can be a great comfort, but our personal likes and dislikes come into play here. Good stories with universal appeal are hard to find. Tracey found several: ‘Horse’ by Geraldine Brooks, whose husband died while she was writing that book.
‘Horwitz’s sudden death three years ago,’ writes Susan Wyndham in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘opened an abyss from which Brooks had to crawl to finish ‘Horse’, a novel infused with love, loss and shared history.’
Tracey also loved ‘All the Light we cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr. A very big story in very small print put me off despite the quality of the writing and the Pulitzer Prize. Needs plenty of time and a love of detail to appreciate.
I loved Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, one of the most original stories I’ve read in many years. What a wonderful imagination this writer has!
Back to Basics
The good news is that we still find lots of great wines between $10 and $20, and on either side of that narrow range.
There was the Kumeu Village Chardonnay 2022 for $21. Sadly it’s all gone, and the 2023 is a much leaner style of wine.
The Dog Ridge Butterfingers Chardonnay 2022 is still available for $21. It only took 6 months for the rich, ripe fruit to come to rise to the top of this little gem.
A late discovery is the Deep Woods Chardonnay 2022 from Margaret River that’s just $15 at 1st Choice and Vintage Cellars. Rich and ripe with good depth and fine texture. Absolute bargain.
The Rosily Semillon / Sauvignon Blanc 2023 was a stand-out at $23 (from Winesquare)
The 2022 Rieslings from Clare were among the best I’ve seen in 50 years of my love affair with Riesling.
The Robert Oatley Signature range, still $17 at Our Cellar if you’re quick. They’re all great value, with the GSM and Shiraz leading the charge.
Jim Barry ‘Barry & Sons’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 was the red bargain of the year for me at $17 (1st Choice), alongside the Hidden Label Coonawarra Cabernets 2020 and 2019 from Kemenys, for the same money (Leconfield Cabernets in a plain wrapper)
2021 Grenache reds from Yalumba and Peter Lehmann (both around $20) showed 2 things: what a great vintage 2021 was in South Australia, and what a dumb idea the South Australian vine-pull scheme of the 1980s was (with low-yielding old Grenache vines the biggest victims).
Further down the price scale we found bargain such as Deep Woods Ebony Cabernet Shiraz 2020 for $11 at 1st Choice, and the Hidden Label Frankland River Tempranillo 2021 for $13 at Kemenys.
That’s enough for now
May 2024 bring more peace and more enlightenment to the world around us.