Today's wines recommendation in the Independent on Sunday New Review are the first of two weeks' selections from the list of Wine Relief wines, a project started by wine writer Jancis Robinson, (I think, officially, the doyenne of wine writers) which is designed to raise money for the Comic Relief charity, which stages its bi-annual Red Nose Day on March 18. For each of the bottles sold from a selection, retailers who are signed up to the scheme - Waitrose, Booths, Majestic, Laithwaites and others - donate 10 per cent of the purchase price to Comic Relief. Like last weeks Fairtrade wines, it is a concept that I'm very happy to support on the basis of one simple premise - that the wines are good and worth recommending. While quality of the Faitrade wines is, frankly, a bit mixed, I'm happy to report that almost all the Wine Relief wines are absolutely worth drinking and its certainly a good time to, perhaps, spend a little more on these wines over the next couple of weeks to ensure even more money goes to a good cause. In this case charity begins not at home, but when we go shopping.
Here are this weeks recommendations, which include the stunning Grande Reserve Du Grassac Rouge, which has become one of my favourite reds: http://tinyurl.com/62dltve
So its nice to feel good about our ethical and charitable contributions while we are slurping down a nice bottle...which brings me, slightly tangentially, to today's appeal by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. Archbishop Vincent Nicholls has appealed to Catholics to give up alcohol and meat on Fridays for Lent in a spirit of self denial - but also, he says, that there are other benefits, like losing weight. While I abhor being lectured to by any religious leaders (particularly ones from institutions like the Catholic church) I can't help but agree we all need to give up or moderate our alcohol consumption - and I do not think that is a hypocritical attitude from a wine writer since I've always advocated sensible drinking and chose to do my period of abstinence in January - but he fails to mention other issues like liver diseases and cancers, which are equally or more important. And his plea to give up meat on Fridays for Lent seems amazingly out of touch - I'm sure there are very few people who eat meat every day now for either health or economic reasons and by implication endorses the idea of eating meat every day once Lent is over. Which is not anyone's idea of a balanced diet. In the same way that religious bodies should never be relied upon for moral guidance and the churches role in charity and ethical issues has been long shown to be overtaken by such secular ventures as Fairtrade and Comic Relief, I dont think we can rely on churches for advice for eating and drinking.
