“The anti-Christmas feelings of avarice and anger were elevated when the journalist posed the rhetorical question: ‘Do I dare sully these exquisite wines with food?’” bemoans wine columnist RICHARD CALVER. 

A mate and I are sitting having a glass of pre-Christmas red at the Symposium wine bar. 

It’s a Victorian 2022 Unconquered Carmenere that, fresh from the newly opened bottle, tastes acrid but with air changes to a pleasant enough drink, the nose also changing so that vanilla and violets suffuse the bouquet while blueberries dominate the palate. This varietal is from Bordeaux, a member of the cabernet family of wines, and is a wine that is unusual in its colour and in its complexity, but doesn’t rate as a future wine of choice. 

My mate grew up in Tasmania and we were discussing the wines we’d be looking forward to consuming during the Christmas break. Despite his state of origin, he waxed lyrical about a French wine he’d tasted at a recent evening out, a 2020 Maison Bouachon Les Comborines Cotes-du-Rhone Villages. 

He said that this wine was excellent with French food, a grenache, shiraz, mourvèdre blend I believe (although the varietal make up is not shown on the label) that he found had good balance with spicy dark fruits on the palate and which finished with real depth. 

He’d bought a dozen for around $28 each and he presented me with a bottle. 

“Hah, thanks there’s nothing better than a friend, unless it’s a friend with wine,” I said. “Friendship is like peeing in your pants; everyone notices but you’re the only one who can feel the warmth. “But really, mate, this gift has made my feelings of anger and avarice about my choice of Christmas bubbly much less real.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Well, you know how much I like Tasmanian sparkling, especially made by EL Carr?”

“The House of Arras, yes.”

“Okay,” I said, “well, it was to be my Christmas bubbly of choice but that feeling of happy anticipation of having it with seafood for the coming season was subsumed by some much more negative feelings after I read a recent article in the Australian Travel and Luxury magazine. It made me angry and envious all at once.

“What’s that about?”

“The journalist disclosed at the end of the piece that she was a guest of the House of Arras for a 40 Years of Tirage private experience named for the period that the three sparkling wines she was presented with had been aged. 

“She was provided with a vertical tasting of the late disgorged 2006, 2007 and 2008 vintages. Marvellous, what an experience sitting back on a sunny day drinking world-class sparkling wine, completely at no cost. 

“The article ignores the cost of this adventure for real people, so I had to look it up: it’s $500 per person, would have been $1000 for the journalist and her friend.”

“Was she knowledgeable about wine, you know, was it a good read?” he asked.

“I must say that the anti-Christmas feelings of avarice and anger were elevated when the journalist posed the rhetorical question: ‘Do I dare sully these exquisite wines with food?’ 

“It’s about matching food and wine, appreciation of wine,” he said. 

“Yes, yes, absolutely. A Frenchman, can’t remember his name, once said that a meal without wine is like a day without sun.” 

“At least you’ve got something else to put on your bucket list,” he said, and took another swig of the red. 

“Yes, mate. But that comment’s a bit like the joke about when I told my anger management counsellor that I wanted to punch something and he replied, try a pillow. I just said that his advice was soft. Merry Christmas.”