Shed Red 2012

The Shed Red 2011 is nearly ready for drinking, that is, nearly ready for drinking by other people after I give bottles as Christmas presents, once the recipient has signed a legally binding disclaimer, naturally.  Indeed, I have already given one bottle away to a relative who was interested in trying home wine making or, to give it its scientific term; ‘getting drunk on the cheap during a recession’.  Early reports are that Shed Red is better drunk after leaving it to breath for a couple of days.  This, I am given to understand, gives the chemical smell and aftertaste time to dissipate.  This may well be the first wine that should not be decanted near varnished surfaces.

So while Shed Red 2011 will shortly only be a memory, and for those whose higher brain functions it inhibits, maybe not even that, excitement is building about Shed Red 2013 – okay rosé!

This was a golden summer, but only in terms of the medal haul of Team GB.  Weatherwise it wasn’t great, in fact the Met Office put out a press release officially declaring it the most ‘bloody miserable’ summer since records began, and that includes the one with the Ark.

The wet summer has given us a truly golden autumn.  The trees have been spectacular this year, leaves shimmering gold and amber and fiery red.  They are, as a result of the (surprise) wind and rain, mostly on their way to being attractive mulch now, but for a few days the colours were glorious.

The wet weather may have produced attractive foliage, but it’s been hard on the crops, my vine in particular.  One of the most important decisions in any grape grower’s life is when to prune the leaves from the vine, allowing the sunlight to shine directly on the crop.  The problem is that the leaves also shelter the grapes from being battered by the rain.  This year, the decision was simple, there was no sunshine and there was plenty of rain.  In addition to a lack of sunshine, I am now able to say with certainty that grape guzzling critters are quite happy to brave the elements while the cats that kept the squirrels at bay last year were, presumably, at home curled up on top of a radiator, occasionally shitting in their owner’s shoe to relieve the monotony or whatever the hell it is that cats do.

The result is that the yield, as they say, is down.  This has affected not just my harvest, but the good people at Nyetimber, who are reported not to have even bothered harvesting this year.

Yea, well, Nyetimber may have bottled it (or not), but it takes more than a vastly reduced yield and the possibility that the under-developed grapes may result in a drink that requires its own entry on the periodic table (SRx) to put team Shed Red off getting out the demijohns, the sugar and the fining powder and other chemical additives that make the stuff drinkable and, importantly, makes drinking it ‘quite an experience’ rather than ‘death by misadventure’.

I have actually tried some of the 2012 and it is an improvement on the 2011, a darker colour (although still a rose rather than a true red, it is a much darker blush, think ‘social mortification resulting in having to make a large donation to a badger sanctuary’ rather than ‘used wrong soup spoon at dinner’ levels of embarrassment) and a more complex taste, there is almost no way in which this could be mistaken, or used for, paint thinner.

Moreover, this is very much a limited edition.  Last year there was about forty bottles of the stuff, this year, a mere eleven or, as my winemaker explained the other night ‘ten’, not that I begrudge him a bottle although I hope that he sipped it and savoured it rather than bolting it with the determination of Frankenstein attempting to destroy his own creation.

Odd though that a year which gave the smaller crop of poor grapes has produced a superior wine.  One thing is for sure, when drinking a 2012 vintage, people will be thinking about gold.  A shame Nyetimber passed on that.

Olympic glory

The best way to explain a visit to the Olympic stadium in London is to compare it to a pilgrimage, and in particular the effect that seeing a cathedral and a crowd for the first time would have on a rural medieval mind.

It's that profound. Entering the Olympic park is exciting enough, as more and more people join a mass all travelling in the same direction, but getting up close to the Olympic stadium is something else. It's immense, the culmination of every stadium ever built, from a circle scratched in the dust to the Colosseum to Wembley, distilled, rolled into one and constructed on the scale of the gods. It's like Karnak with a running track.

And appropriately, it has it's myths. Like the transport system is crowded. Far from it, travel to and from the park was smooth and easy. And that the airport style security would take two hours. All I can say is that I wish security at Gatwick was that friendly and efficient. The troops were fantastic. No doubt about it, these guys seen close up have moved beyond the status of troops and are now officially Warriors, and are obviously enjoying the novelty of having kids wanting photographs with them rather than being shot at by angry bearded men.


The same goes for the police. Most police spent their time lending their helmets to small children to have their pictures taken in. The mounted police horses showed great patience as they were continuously patted and the police were presumably thinking that this was a lot, lot better than a year ago, when people were throwing things at them. Things that were on fire. Even the police snipers on the roof of the Holiday Inn were probably having a good time. I hope they were in a good mood anyway.

Inside the stadium, the atmosphere was such that one suspects that there is actually a noble gas called 'euphoria'. I was giddy to the point of nausea with excitement, the early start and the altitude that our seats were at (second to back row, meaning you don't miss a thing happening on the track or field, or indeed anywhere below cloud level).

The best way to describe the Olympic experience, seeing an Olympian in action? It's like watching your team go a goal up in the last minute of play in the final, it's like your favourite band hammering out the opening chords of your favourite song at the gig, it's being pushed into your seat as the airplane accelerates down the runway, it's pure, unadulterated exhilaration. With added cheering. And it's like that all the time.

The crowd's reaction to the athletes was incredible. As Mo Farah ran his 5000m qualifier, the crowd applauded as he passed and the sound circled the stadium like an audible Mexican wave, for twelve and a half laps of the track, building every time until on the last lap it was a constant cacophony of clapping, shouting, cheering and screaming. Mo qualified and I believe the correct sporting term is that the crowd went bananas.

There were also moments when the reaction of the crowd made one ridiculously proud to be British, like the athlete who pulled a muscle and limped home, helped across the finish line by 80,000 people cheering, or the woman competitor from Saudi Arabia, last in the race, first woman competitor from her country, and the reason the entire stadium erupted as she ran for home.

History was made. To be part of that, to be making that history is a privilege and the crowd knew it and embraced it and applauded, cheered and shouted it. It's no wonder that Brits have been using the word 'proud' unironically.

And when the crowd got behind the Team GB competitors, it lifted them, with Lynsey Sharp in the women's 800m doing the last 200m like a rocket, gifted wings by every raw hand and throat.

Team GB was also much in evidence on the front of every tee shirt and baseball cap and if anyone was in any doubt about who was supporting what team, the Union Flags worn as scarfs, capes or sarongs banished that doubt. Thank God that the Union Flag is such a design icon and looks fantastic on everything from socks to hats, imagine coming from a country that features some sort of fowl as your national emblem. We don't care how well you do in the games, there is no getting away from it that that your flag has a chicken on it.

And to put one argument to bed, rock music + athletics = fantastic! Anyone that has ever run with a running mix will appreciate that the right beats gets the heart pumping, and apparently it goes for the spectators too!

And of course, I had to visit the largest McDonalds in the world. It was...excellent. Oh god, the shame. I've not been to a maccy dees in twenty years but that cheeseburger tasted just the same as it always did (fries were a bit sweeter than I remember though), just as good as it always did, just as satisfying as it always did. Once through the door at the express lane a lovely young woman took our order on a hand held gadget and by the time we had paid it was ready. Out to the garden area, got a seat no problem. The place was heaving but super-slick and rather relaxed. It's also maybe reversed my prejudice about the golden arches that started with the McLibel trial and rolled on from there but now, maybe it's time to start wolfing down those big macs again. I still recall with affection the result of a big mac meal, with a greasy wrapper and that curious feeling of satisfaction and nausea that comes from inhaling 250% of your recommended daily allowance of fat, grease and clumsy slaughterhouse worker.

And the restaurant was great place to take a break, because the Olympic park was home to, what looked like, half of the population of the planet. The were people everywhere, including volunteers (happy to take your photograph) and folk with insulated backpacks peddling beverages - the beer comes in plastic bottles, how about that for a culture shock? No matter, I wanted to bribe one of them to follow me round all day like a mobile mini-bar. Maybe that's the way forward, not one bloke with beer and another with water, but one chap with overpriced beer, spirits and toblerone. And not just at the Olympics either, I think it could catch on in everyday life.

There is a lot to be impressed by when watching athletes that are doing things in front of you that you would normally associate with CGI, but one of the most impressive things is their focus. The pole vault, 5000m qualifying race and hammer throw are all happening simultaneously and each athlete is in a world of their own, oblivious to the incoming wildly thrown hammer or bloke falling to earth like an angel. It's this focus, I think, that makes an Olympian, the ability to separate yourself from the dross of everyday existence. It's probably this same quality that gets you up at five in the morning on a wet winter day to go on a training run.

The Olympic hype began the moment we secured the 2012 games and the build up has been on the hysterical side for months but nothing, nothing can actually prepare you for being in a place which, for a brief period, is arguably the most important place on the planet.

Just to prove the point, the only event that even came close in terms of human achievement this week happened on Mars.

Two wheels good

The men’s Olympic road race runs out from and then back to the centre of London but on Box Hill in Surrey it dos eight circuits of the Hill. This is the place to see the race.

Which is obviously what the thousands who lined the route thought. The crowd was divided into two broad camps, those who were there to get close to an Olympic event, and cycling fans. You could tell the cycling fans, they had come on their bikes, in lycra. Middle aged men should not wear lycra, no matter how sport appropriate it is, it’s not age-appropriate. The only way to make a middle aged bloke with a gut look worse than he would naked is to put him in a skin tight lycra tee shirt and shorts that are brightly coloured.

The event itself was breathtaking. Just as you have no appreciation of what a horse race is like until you have stood against the barriers and felt the ground tremble as the horses thunder home, so you have no idea of the speed and scale of a mass cycling road race until you’ve seen it up close, and it does get close, with cyclists passing inches from the tip of your nose and the wind from the rushing peleton rippling flags and banners as they sped past.

Encouragement came in cheers and applause for the riders, as well as good luck messages of encouragement scrawled on the tarmac. I’m not sure what they say about Britain in Iran, but when the Iranian cyclist, who was a little behind the pack on his own, goes home his image of the Great British Public will be loads of people clapping and bellowing ‘come on Iran!’. We may not like their nuclear programme, but we like a plucky cyclist.

Also starting to wonder if there is some sort of nickname index for how posh a sport is. Basically, if your name is shortened and ends in ‘…ers’, it’s a posh sport, like cricket (Tuffers). If it ends in ‘…o’, it’s a bit less posh, like cycling (Wiggo, Cavo). And if it ends in ‘..ker’, you play football.