Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- Here's Think Spain on the 'weirdest August fiestas' in Spain. The competition is tough for this honour.
- As for us in Pontevedra . . . This, at the start of our annual madness, was a weekend of bullfights. And, therefore, of gatherings of young folk in 2 of the city's squares. Elder kids congregate in Plaza de Teucro, drink a lot and then, good naturedly, spray each other with wine. Though not yet in this foto:-
The males of this group treat the nearby residents to the annual Street of Piss, micturating - ironically, perhaps - outside a tiny chapel towards the top of this street. I've no idea what the women do:-
Younger kids - seemingly from the age of 11 or 12 upwards - congregate in Plaza de Santa María, where they drink, climb on the fountain there and then piss and vomit around the old quarter:-
But, unlike in the UK, no one hits or stabs anyone else. Or, at least, only very rarely.
- While all this is going on, not very far away is a square - Plaza de la Pedreira- which is almost always totally empty, even on a night like this. It's as if it's on another planet. Or at least in a different city:-
- I wonder whether it's connected with the concerts of our Fiesta Grande this week but there seem to be a surprising number of old guys with untidy white beards walking around the old quarter these days. Hard not to notice the one who passed me yesterday wearing a flat cap, white shirt, green braces and bright yellow trousers.
- Talking of people passing by . . . these videos don't do justice to the noise generated by these guys:-
- Would you believe that, as they played right in front of my table, an attractive young women started asking me about what I was doing in Pontevedra, presenting me with the challenge of figuring out who the hell she was. And why the interest in me. It was a few seconds before I realised she had a mike in her hand.And that a colleague was filming the chat. Perhaps for TV Galicia. Maybe I should've essayed my Gallego . . .
- In a pharmacy on Saturday morning, I asked if they'd sell me my 'prescription only' analgesic in the absence of one. The answer: Más o menos. Vamos a ver. More or less. Let's see. Presumably the next time I go in . . . All very Spanish.
The UK
- See the article below for a possible reason to be grateful for AGW?
The Way of the World/Social Media/Spanish
- In an article on what my generation called 'courting', I read of the types of folk on social media who've expressed an interest in you. You can use Google to get a literal translation of what were given as Spanish equivalents:-
- Breadcrumbing: Migatas que enganchan.
- Curving: Esquivando la bala.
- Instgramstanding: Solo para tu ojos.
- Kittenfishing: Versión mejorada.
- Orbiting: Estar sin estar.
- R-bombing: Gente con filtro.
- Zombis: Cuerpos sin alma.
What a wonderful world . . . Since I don't really know what the English labels mean, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the Spanish equivalents. María?
Finally . . .
- I've been searching Irish birth records of the late 19th and early 20th century for confirmation of my grandmother's identity, birth date and family details. The challenge has not been made any easier by the small pool of saints' names which Irish families all chose from back then. Nor by what I'm convinced are mistakes in recording and later transcribing. For example, the name of the village in which my grandmother was allegedly born but which never seems to have existed - Bohernagrina. But this is quite close to the name of another village not very far away - Bohernabreena. But neither of these is cited in the official census of 1901, nor that of 1911. Where she is recorded as having been born not just somewhere else but in a different county to that on the birth certificate we've obtained.
THE ARTICLE
Forget Champagne . . . try Chateau Sheffield: the northern vineyard thriving thanks to climate change: Joe Shute
In 1972, Sir Reresby Sitwell ignored all expert opinion – and local bafflement – and planted the most northerly vineyard on earth in the grounds of his Derbyshire estate, Renishaw Hall.
At a latitude of 53 degrees, 18 minutes north and only a few miles from the smokestacks and steel mills of Sheffield, this was far from anyone’s idea of wine country. But Sir Reresby, inspired by the vineyard his family already kept in the chianti region of Tuscany, could not be swayed.
The Renishaw wine, recalls his daughter Alexandra who took over the estate following the death of her father in 2009, was famously awful: a sharp vinegary hit that would draw one’s gums back over their teeth. Local tenants would wince whenever they were proffered a glass as they came to pay the rent. “When my husband used to come and stay, Father would crack open a bottle and I would stand behind him waving – ‘don’t drink it’,” Alexandra says.
But the icy winters and dreary summers which Sir Reresby battled in vain against for decades are now increasingly a thing of the past. According to a new Met Office report, Britain’s top 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2002. Last month, Derbyshire recorded its highest ever temperature of 34.4C at Coton-in-the-Elms, eclipsing the previous 34.1C record set at the same location in 2006.
All this, according to winemaker Kieron Atkinson, who now runs the Renishaw vineyard, has created conditions similar to those seen in the champagne region of France 20 years ago. As a result they are able to produce sparkling white, rosé and even red wines, which have won numerous accolades in the Decanter World Wine awards and are on sale in local branches of Waitrose.
“It’s difficult, as a wine maker, to be profiting from what will be a global catastrophe,” says Atkinson, a 41-year-old father of three who, prior to entering the winemaking world, served in Afghanistan as a captain in the Light Dragoons. “All sorts of stuff which is good for grape growing is bad for everyone else. But from an insular grape growing perspective, the fruit and quality from the wine making process is far exceeding anything we could have done even a decade ago.”
The world’s rapidly warming climate may no longer mean the 17th century built Renishaw Hall is officially the world’s most northerly vineyard (that accolade now belongs to Norway’s Lerkekasa Vineyard, a two hour drive southwest of Oslo) or indeed even Britain’s, but it remains at the forefront of the country’s winemaking revolution.
In 1972, when Sir Reresby first planted his vines he was one of a handful of winemakers in England. Last year 15.6m bottles were produced nationwide, more than doubling the previous record of 6.3m set in 2014. The number of British vines has increased by 160 per cent in a decade to span 7,000 acres. In 2018, 1.6 million vines were planted with a further 2 million expected over the course of this year.
Even France’s champagne houses are capitalising on the boom by planting their own vineyards in Britain. In 2015 Taittinger bought 70 hectares in Kent to plant with chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines – with the first bottles expected to be released in 2024.
While Kent possesses a chalk sub-soil similar in structure to Champagne’s Côte des Blancs, back north in the vineyard dubbed ‘Chateau Sheffield’, Atkinson is growing on free-draining sandy loam. But the soil, he insists, is not necessarily as important as the weather.
“Even in this part of the world, they are saying in 40 years’ time we are going to be planting cabernet sauvignon (a red wine grape traditionally associated with hotter climes). “And in the south of England it will be too hot for fruit generally and people will be growing raisins instead.”
Such predictions may sound somewhat overblown but Atkinson has done his homework. After leaving the army he studied viticulture at the prestigious Plumpton College in Sussex, and works as a consultant all over the country through his company The English Wine Project. His experiences in Afghanistan fuelled his interest in wine, as he says it taught him that he wanted to produce something rather than sit behind a desk. “I wanted to avoid that classic army route of going into the City and earning lots of money,” he says, admittedly somewhat ruefully.
His expertise has helped turbocharge production at Renishaw Hall, consulting advisors from the top of the industry to ensure they are creating wine of the highest quality. “Wine is definitely an industry where success breeds more success,” he says.
One of the criteria for assessing the suitability of a wine-growing area is the so-called growing degree days (GDD), which counts how often, and by what margin, the weather is warm enough for the vines to flourish. According to Atkinson, at Renishaw they have progressed from around 670 GDDs in the 1970s to approaching 950 over the last decade – a rate roughly similar to Champagne 20 years ago and Marlborough, New Zealand, today.
Walking through the centuries-old walled garden of Renishaw, originally used as a paddock for racehorses before being planted with a hectare of vines, already the grapes are set and slowly ripening in the sun. Roughly, Atkinson estimates the amount of fruit each vine can produce has increased from 2kg to 6kg in a decade.
He plans to harvest the crop in October – unless the wood pigeons get there first – although last year the weather was so hot and the harvest so bountiful he ended up picking the grapes in September. “Last year we had about 60 people in for the picking,” Atkinson says. “It was like that scene from Jaws: ‘you’re going to need a bigger boat’.”
However, in spite of the undeniable warming trend which has allowed vineyards like Renishaw to flourish, experts have warned that the British weather will continue to remain as variable as ever – indeed even more so as climate change bites.
On the same day we sipped sparkling wine in the sun in the courtyard at Renishaw Hall, 40 miles away, on the other side of Derbyshire, residents were being evacuated from Whaley Bridge after the town’s reservoir was damaged in heavy rainfall.
In 2016 a researcher at the University of East Anglia published a report assessing the impact of climate change on the British wine industry, concluding that while opportunities were being expanded as the country warmed, turbulent weather would continue to threaten yields. To illustrate his point, widespread frosts the following year caused “catastrophic” damage to vineyards in the south, killing off buds that had prematurely bloomed.
According to Atkinson, Renishaw’s northerly location means its buds remain dormant for longer, weathering the worst of the spring frosts.
For now, though, Chateau Sheffield appears to have hit a wine-making sweet spot. “I never thought we would get to the stage where it is actually very drinkable,” says Alexandra Sitwell. “But I think my father would be incredibly proud.”
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