Australia and January Wine
Posted: 1st February 2023
You catch me writing, swaddled in a collection of hats, coats and blankets, or periodically burning £20 notes like some caricature ‘Buller Boy’ – but more to feed a feeble heat to this draughty house than show off my huge wealth to the ‘proles’ tramping along outside. In the circumstances it is good to conjure up other stereotypes: Australia, for example, and think of Bondi beach-boys and girls, and warmth, and sun, and maybe even wine. O to be able to say ‘I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.’
Wine helps. Wine is captured sunlight, and while you drink it you can fantasise about warmth. Australia is a fairly hot place in January, and it is fitting perhaps that the Australia Day tasting is the first major event in the calendar of the New Year.
