My Uncle Oswald on Wine & Life

October 15, 2009

One of my favourite books is My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl - it’s a little gem that you can read over and over again.

I read it while backpacking through Europe and it’s various themes of adventure resonated with me loudly.

Here’s one of my favourite passages from the book - and I remember writing it down in my travel journal:

I can remember the two of us the next day eating lunch while sitting on the low white wall along the boundary of Romane Conti – cold chicken, French Bread, a Fromage dur and a bottle of Romane Conti itself. We spread our food on the top of the wall and stood the bottle alongside, together with two good wine glasses. My father drew the cork and poured the wine while I did my best to carve the chicken, and there we sat in the warm autumn sun, watching the grape-pickers combing the rows of vines, filling their baskets, bringing them to the heads of the rows, dumping the grapes into larger baskets which in turn were emptied into carts drawn by pale creamy brown horses.

I can remember my father sitting on the wall and waving a half-eaten drum stick in the direction of this splendid scene and saying, “You’re sitting, my boy, on the edge of the most famous piece of land in the whole world! Just look at it! Four and a half acres of flinty red clay! That’s all it is! But those grapes you can see them picking at this very moment will produce a wine that is a glory among wines. It is also almost unobtainable because so little of it is made. This bottle we are drinking now came from here eleven years ago. Smell it! Inhale the bouquet! Taste it! Drink it! But never try to describe it! It is impossible to put such a flavour into words! To drink a Romane Conti is like having an orgasm in the mouth ad the nose both at the same time.”

I loved it when my father got himself worked up like this. Listening to him during those early years, I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiastic in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

Now if that doesn’t make you want to go to France, drink a great bottle of wine and/or grab life by the horns - then I don’t know what will!

Posted in Books