Diary of a Shopkeeper, 2nd March
This week our A to Z of food and drink continues with U, V and W.
And what drink word could be more important than U for uisge beatha, as our Gaelic speaking friends to the south and west call whisky. For uisge beatha means literally the water of life. The Gaelic version (both Scots and Irish) was introduced by medieval monks, a literal translation of the Latin aqua vitae, which is found in local languages everywhere the Roman empire spread its tentacles – and adjoining regions too. Hence acquavite in Italy, eau de vie in France, akvavit in various Scandinavian languages and okowita in Polish.
The first distilled alcoholic drinks are thought to have been made in 13th century Italy, and brought westward by those monks. Initially it was used as a medicine, treating illnesses like smallpox and colic. If that seems unlikely, during the years of prohibition in the USA, from 1920 to 1933, it was still legal to drink whisky – if you got it on prescription from a doctor and collected your medicine from a pharmacy.
All of which seems a long way from today, where whisky is unassailably established as the finest spirit in the world. It’s no longer sold as a health drink – the medieval kombucha! – but as a heritage drink. Just as you must drink sake if you go to Japan, and wine if you go to France, you have to try whisky if you come to Scotland. To fail to do so would be to miss out on a unique part of our cultural patrimony. Plus, it tastes good.
One piece of French wine culture that was almost lost forever is V for Viognier. Once widespread all over southern France, this ancient white grape was nearly wiped out by the phylloxera bug in the late 19th century. Millions of hectares of vineyards of all sorts were destroyed by this parasitical infestation, imported from the USA, before strategies were found to defeat it. (It wasn’t all bad news: the destruction of vineyards in southwest France meant there was no wine to distil brandy from. Hence the rise in worldwide popularity of uisge beatha.)
Viogner had never been an easy grape to grow, and after phylloxera, many farmers decided to replant with more productive and disease-resistant varieties. By the 1960s, only eight acres of Viognier were known to survive, all in the Northern Rhône, producing just over 200 cases of wine per year. Happily, appreciation of Viognier’s unique flavours and aromas started to spread, replanting occurred in the Rhône. There are now approaching 800 acres there, plus more planting across southern France as well as in California, Australia and elsewhere.
No other wine smells and tastes like Viogner! Its apricot and peach aromas are followed by a rich, round palate that fills the mouth with a velvety wave of wine. It’s great as an aperitif, or with spicy foods like fish curry or chicken satay. It’s not always easy to find a good Viogner: if harvested too early the grapes have not developed their characteristic flavour profile; but if harvested too late, they lack acidity, and the wine is flabby and unrefreshing. Great Viognier areas like the steep slopes of Condrieu in the Rhône produce wines that are delicious but painfully expensive. Luckily, over the past few days I’ve been trying a range of Viogniers from different importers in London, and have found a couple of fine examples at excellent prices. These will make their way onto our shelves in the weeks ahead.
Another unique product that came back from almost extinction is W for Wensleydale. Surprisingly, we have French monks to thank for this most English cheese. A community of Cistercian monks from Roquefort in the Languedoc moved first to northern France and then, in the middle of the 12th century, to Jervaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire. Initially they continued making a blue sheep’s milk cheese as they had in France, but gradually the blue changed to white, and the milk came from cows.
The sharp, crumbly, sometimes honey-scented Wensleydale dominated English cheese landscape for centuries along with other classics like Lancashire, Cheshire, Red Leicester, and Double Gloucester. Together, these cheeses, all closely linked to a particular area, became known as Territorial Cheeses. With increasing industrialisation after World War 2, the Territorials became blander and blander, and more and more divorced from their places of origin. Good farmhouse examples became almost impossible to find, and supermarkets used the well-known names as brands for blocks of tasteless mass-produced rubbish that would have sent those French monks reeling.
Thankfully, the emergence of the artisan cheese movement over the last quarter century has meant that real Territorial Cheeses have not only survived, but thrived. Any cheese shop worth its salt will be able to sell you excellent Lancashire from Kirkham, characteristic Red Leicester from Sparkenhoe and flavoursome Cheddar from three or four different artisan producers. And thanks to the celebrity endorsement of Wallace and Gromit, Wensleydale is more popular than ever.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 6th Marcch 2025. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.