Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [82]
3. Until the seventeenth century, just after Shakespeare’s time, Englishmen called wine from the Rhineland “Rhenish.” Then they started switching to “hock.” Where did the new name come from?
4. German wines are grouped today as hocks and moselles or mosels. I undertake to tell them apart before they are even poured out. Am I vainly boasting?
5. There is a variety of wine called Eiswein, not often seen even in Germany and very expensive. Explain what it is.
6. The sweet dessert wines of Germany are very highly esteemed and are thought to be surpassed only, if at all, by those of Sauternes. The same disease of grapes is at work in both cases. Give its German name.
7. Now an easy one. Name the odd man out: Rheinhessen Rheingold Nahe Rheingau Rheinpfalz.
8. Define the following:
(a) schaumwein
(b) sekt
(c) liebfraumilch
(d) Riesling
(e) tafelwein.
9. If Trockenbeerenauslese signifies the sweetest wines of Germany, and it does, how can Trocken alone indicate a dry wine, as it does?
10. There is a vineyard and a wine in the Rhineland named after one of our monarchs and another in the moselle country whose name commemorates the fact that the personal physician of another strongly recommended it. Can you identify them, i.e. the vineyards/wines? Clue: the two monarchs were related.
WINE — ITALY, SPAIN , PORTUGAL
Although wines from these three countries are drunk in the UK in fair quantities, those from Spain and Portugal increasingly so, not a great deal is generally known about them. In the case of Italy, lack of knowledge may be something to do with the amiable semi-chaos of its labelling habits. As regards Spanish wines, to me what may need explaining is less the prevailing ignorance about them than the prevailing readiness to drink them. Wines from Portugal, on the other hand, quite different from those of Spain, have long struck me as mysteriously underestimated for their merit and variety.
1. Nobody deserves a mark for knowing that “vino secco” is Italian for “dry wine.” It may be a little harder to arrange the following in ascending order of sweetness, starting with a word meaning “bone-dry.”
amabile asciutto abboccato dolce pastoso.
2. What do the letters DOC, seen on a wine-label, stand for and what is their significance?
3. Some Italian wines have the term “classico” attached to their name, as Chianti Classico. Does this mean anything substantial?
4. What about “riserva” similarly used?
5. Name the odd man out: Verdicchio Vermentino Frascati Barolo
6. Few of those reading this will be unaware that “viño blanco” is Spanish for “white wine.” The following are used to indicate other kinds of wine. Name them.
(a) Espumoso
(b) rosado
(c) corriente
(d) tinto
(e) de mesa.
7. The Spaniards like ageing their best wines, especially the reds, in oak barrels. What is the most noticeable effect of this on the flavour?
8. A lot of Spanish red wine perhaps understandably finds its way into Sangria, the cold punch. Give its essential ingredients; quantities not required.
9. There are some very decent table wines, both red and white, made in a region of north Portugal. Can you say their collective very brief name?
10. What is the wine speciality of the town and region of Setúbal not far from Lisbon?
WINES — OTHERS
“Others” is not a very sonorous or evocative term for anything, certainly not wine. But some such expression is hard to avoid when the produce of five continents is under discussion. No disparagement is intended. Strange to think that one or other of the “others” will sooner or later be producing the first wines in the world to give Lafite and Yquem a run for their money.
1. You probably know a lot about Tokay or Tokaji, the famous dessert wine of Hungary, its amber colour, the volcanic soil it comes from, all that, but can you define the following?
(a) Tokay Aszu
(b) Tokay Eszencia
(c) Tokay