|
Porto
IV: TF '70
When I was young, the hours between Christmas Eve dinner and our
departure for Midnight Mass seemed interminable. Forbidden fruits lay under the
tree whence they could not be removed till morning; older relatives spoke of
persons and places I had no knowledge of; little kids watched “A Charlie Brown
Christmas” and fell fitfully asleep on couches. I mostly poked in the
fireplace.
But one Holy Night, someone gave me an early present: a paperback edition
of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. After dinner, I went to my room and read it,
reaching the last page just as my father called us all down to the car. Reading
that book, on that night, at that time in my life, resulted in one of the
deepest experiences of living literature I have ever had. Many Christmas Eves
since then, I have revisited those pages, if only to read a few lines to
children who have already seen the video.
To bring us from one of Dickens’ finest works to one of port’s finest
vintages, may I present
Vincent Whelan, Esq., who has unstintingly shared his
love of Chesterton, Dickens, and fine wines with us and so many others. A few
weeks before Christmas last year, as we exchanged remembrances of Christmas
readings and suggestions for wines during the holy days, he said quietly “You
know what Barbara and I just opened? A 1970 Taylor-Fladgate.” Now, the TF 70
is a legendary port, but that was not what I thought of as Angela and I settled
down to our boon glass later that week.
Instead, over the finest experience of port I have ever had, my mind
turned back to Christmas of 1970. The worst-dressed decade in American history
was starting. The Beatles were cracking up. And I was in the eighth grade,
reading A Christmas Carol in my bedroom. But somewhere up the Duoro River in
Portugal, working men had set aside a bottle of wine, which after passing
through so many hands and miles and years, was now being relished by us nearly three
decades later. It was all planned by Providence.
Contrary to popular impression, experiencing true greatness never takes
away from one’s enjoyment of lesser goods. Having read A
Christmas Carol thirty years ago did not render me unable to appreciate
lesser short novels, and drinking Vince’s superb port last year did not make
me look askance at my much smaller and younger collection. Indeed, it somehow
made it easier to see how Dickens and port and Chesterton and Christmas are all
related, if only because each sits safely in the broad hands of God. +++ |
