Diary of a Shopkeeper, 28th February
West Side Cinema Paradiso
The news that the Dounby and County shows are cancelled this year is not unexpected, but is still a disappointment. Whether you’re curry-combing livestock, casing the Case tractors, queuing at the food stalls and beer tent, or birling in circles at the fun fair, they’re both great days out, brimming with Orkney spirit.
I applaud the ambitions of the Folk Festival committee, who are working hard to develop an online version of the festival for May. There may not be the same atmosphere sitting at home with the laptop blaring as there is in the Stromness Hotel or Birsay Hall, but at least we can hear the music loud and clear.
But an online version of show week? Impossible!
Sadly, an online version of Kirkness & Gorie’s Orkney Wine Festival is pretty much out of the question too. The festival’s events are all about conviviality, about bringing people together around a table. Excellent Orkney food is served, top-notch wine is poured, and winemaker guests from around the world share the stories and family histories behind their delicious products.
That’s the way it’s been since the first wine festival event, on 28th May 2008. On that sunny evening, our host was Jan Pettersen of renowned Sherry maker, Fernando di Castilla, and we enjoyed Orkney tapas made by Alan and Stewart Craigie of The Creel. The template of great local food, fine wine, and interesting guests was set that night, and we’ve followed it pretty much ever since, through 13 festivals.
Jan’s story was particularly quirky. A Norwegian, he’d arrived in Edinburgh in the 1970s to study brewing at Heriot Watt University. There he’d fallen in love with a Spanish student, and marriage followed. I don’t know at what point he discovered his wife’s parents ran a leading Sherry bodega, and were keen to find a successor, but he turned from beer to Sherry and never looked back. He joked that he was the world’s only Sherry-making Viking.
There have been many highlights over the years, not all of them in dining rooms. In 2008, the Merkister Hotel made a dream come true for legendary Chianti winemaker, Paulo di Marchi, when John Munson took him out on Harray Loch and helped him catch a trout.
A favourite event in recent years has been our regular collaboration with West Side Cinema. For these evenings, not just wine, food and a visiting winemaker are necessary, but also a suitable film. I think the perfect combination was in 2014, when Giulia Lazzarini poured Donnafugata’s Sicilian wine as we watched the Sicilian masterpiece, Cinema Paradiso. Paradise, indeed.
Above all, we’ve had memorable meals at restaurants, bars and cafés all over Orkney, from formal to casual to hilarious, with winemakers from Chablis to Marlborough to Chile. We’ve had live music, poetry readings, giant pork pies, even a blend-your-own-rosé event in 2019.
2020 was planned, scheduled – and cancelled. What of 2021? It’s possible that restrictions will be relaxed in May. But which restrictions and to what extent? It’s impossible to say. Restaurants may be open, but will alcohol sales be permitted? What size of tables and mix of households will be allowed? Will our winemakers be able to travel here, or will movement from one level to another – let alone one country to another – be banned?
For understandable reasons, these questions can’t be answered now. And because they can’t, it’s impossible to organise a conventional wine festival.
Instead, we’re dreaming up an unconventional wine festival. That all-important conviviality will be severely limited, unfortunately. But we already have some ideas of how to inject entertainment, excitement and a wee bit of education into a “Wine Festival at Home”.
Like many businesses across Orkney, we had to adapt last year, and we’re having to adapt again this year. Over a very difficult twelve months, the support of customers across the county has kept us going both financially and emotionally. We’re extremely grateful.
Now we’re looking forwards, and looking forward to sharing our plans for a great, if greatly adapted, 2021 wine festival. Details are still to be confirmed, but I’m pretty sure they won’t include waltzers and candy floss. We’ll all have to wait a wee bit longer for those.
Keep an eye on our Wine Festival webpage for the latest developments.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 4th March. Other diaries continue to appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.