Wine of the Week
ALL writers about wine are witty and wise, but Philip Morton Shand, who died on Saturday, Was wiser and wittier than most. More opinionated, too: he couldn't abide port, the process of making which he described as 'rendering a wine that would be otherwise cheap and wholesome both dear and gouty.' What he loved were the great natural wines of Germany and, more par- ticularly, of France. though he wrote too long ago (A Book of Wine was published in 1926) for those of Alsace to have struggled through their post-First-War teething troubles to reach their present standard. He died in Lyons, which F referred to here a couple of weeks ago as the belly of Franco. As he loved eating as much as he did drinking, he must have died happy. Shand thought more highly of the macaroons of St. Emilion (which are, indeed, delicious) than of its wines, which he underrated, saying that it was absurd to rank the first growths- Ausone and Cheval-Blanc-with those of the Medoc. Personally, I'm not so sure: try the 1950 London-bottled Cheval-Blanc, listed by Saccone and Speed at 20s., or the quite superb château- bottled 1949 at 27s. 6d. Or, on a more modest level, the 1952 Château Pavie, sold by the same people at 12s. 6d.-firm, fruity, ready to drink now, but also worth putting down for a couple of years, and a good example of the wines that because of their fullness are sometimes described
as the burgundies of Bordeaux.' CYRIL RAY
Novi Vat
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