Is This Bottle Corked__ The Secret Life of Wine - Kathleen Burk [53]
There is an irony in all of this. It was probably the case that the scandal fed on what was an easily understood threat: drinking antifreeze. In fact, most antifreezes consist mainly of ethylene glycol, not diethylene glycol: diethylene glycol would only be half as good in preventing your car’s radiator from freezing up. Therefore, what was added to the wine may not have been nice, but it was not antifreeze. This simple misconception probably reflects the regrettable lack by most journalists of a basic knowledge of chemistry.
Care for some Gevrey-Chambertin with those organ pipes?
THE MONASTIC PROFESSION has always been curiously competitive, and nowhere more so than in Ottobeuren, just thirty miles as the crow flies from Weingarten and the birthplace, in 1710, of Karl Josef Riepp. On the death of their father, Riepp and his brother Rupert moved to Strasbourg to learn organ building with the great André Silbermann. In 1741, Riepp married a woman from Dole, formerly capital of Franche-Comté in the Saône Valley, before settling in Dijon. Not content with confining himself to organ building, Riepp was admitted to the wine merchants’ corporation of Dijon in 1748.
Twelve years later, the monks of Ottobeuren decided to commission a new organ for their new basilica—and one that would outshine Gabler’s instrument at Weingarten. Despite Gabler’s having enrolled his son as a novice in the Ottobeuren monastery, word of the chaos of the Weingarten contract had reached the monks’ ears. Riepp put in a bid; not only was he an Ottobeuren man, but he was also, unlike Gabler, actually an organ builder. It was time for the return of the native: Karl Josef Riepp got the contract.
Promising the monks a fine instrument in the new German style, Riepp nevertheless delivered, between 1761 and 1766, a tremendous, powerful, and magnificent instrument in what was unmistakably the French style. The monks of Ottobeuren didn’t complain, for every time Riepp sent a consignment of organ pipes up from Dijon, he included a few “sample” cases of his wines; by then, he was no longer just a merchant, but owned vineyards in Vosne-Romanée and Gevrey-Chambertin, and his vintages were gaining a reputation for themselves.
Predictably, the “samples” produced firm orders in return, and—despite Riepp’s declaration that “if there are better organs in Europe, then my name’s Jack”—it seems that he made more money on the wine than he did from the organ.
Karl Josef Riepp died in Dijon on May 5, 1775, leaving a certain degree of financial confusion and some noble vineyards to his wife, Anne-Françoise, and some equally noble organs to posterity. And, of course, some very happy monks.
Did Slovenia turn the British into a nation of wine drinkers?
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, the Germans referred to England as the land ohne Musik (without music); it could certainly be argued that, at least until the 1970s and 1980s, Britain was the land ohne Wein. This is not, of course, to say that wine was not drunk; rather, beer was the usual drink, supplemented by gin. A special occasion might call for champagne; Christmas certainly called for a glass of (usually sweet) sherry. But as for wine’s making a regular appearance with meals, this was relatively rare, even among the upper-middle and upper classes, the traditional buyers and drinkers of wines.
The Second World War appears to have changed this. Many Britons spent at least part of the war in France and, especially, Italy, where the south was occupied by the British and American armies from 1943. Many soldiers there discovered the regular—and for those countries, normal—pleasures of a glass of wine with their meals or over conversation with friends, and when they returned home, they wanted to continue this new way of life. But what to drink? Fortunately, Slovenia came to the rescue and provided a wine that took the new drinking classes by storm, becoming the best-selling