Scaffold wines

If you were going to be executed tomorrow, what would your last drink be?

On Tuesday I wrote about Viña Ardanza, the wine that I would choose were the revolution to come and I would be lined up against the wall with all the other counter revolutionaries, dangerous intellectuals, kulaks etc. I thought it would be interesting to see what other people thought. 

So I emailed a few notable writers both from the food and drink world and a couple who I know are interested in wine. One thought I was being terribly morbid and refused to take part but a few people did get back to me with their answers. Not surprisingly champagne features highly, as the Russian count said: “between the revolution and the firing squad, there is always time for a bottle of champagne.” Burgundy was also a popular choice though some people went for something a bit stronger, which seems sensible. 

Morbid, moi?

With the right libation, you might go to your doom like Charles I in Marvell’s An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland:

That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,

Stirring stuff. Right, shall we find out what everyone picked? Let me know in the comments what your scaffold wine would be 

Oz Clarke - writer and presenter

Last drink: mystery Tuscan wine

The wine was barely red, barely ripe, barely finished fermenting, prickly, redcurrant raw, and squirted from an ancient barrel into a dusty litre bottle picked from the floor of the shop. We drank it in a Tuscan meadow as the bees droned and our minds were crazed with first love. I have never tasted a wine that tasted so urgently of the raucous joy of being alive. And I am now at my last minute on this earth. Who wouldn’t crave one more draught of youth, of optimism, of the promise of a glorious, unpredictable life to lead, of the helpless, heady joy of first love.   Yes, but what is the wine called?   I never knew. It didn’t matter. And her name?  Ah…..

Victoria Moore - Daily Telegraph wine columnist

Last drink: gin & tonic, very strong 

I've never understood why people ask this sort of question. Why not make it joyful: if you could have one night and only one night of indulgence in the year ahead what would you pick? Because with a firing squad in prospect my brain and personality determine that I have to take the question literally and say I couldn't stomach any sort of wine at all but I might like to let go on an incredibly strong gin & tonic (current gin on the bench is actually Brad Pitt's Gardener gin and I take it 50-50) or a mighty martini.

Tom Parker-Bowles - writer and broadcaster

Last drink: Leoville Barton 1982

It would be a bottle of Leoville Barton 1982. Not the grandest of clarets but for me, one of the best. My grandfather was a wine merchant and he thought it was up there with the greats. As ever, he was right. 

Tim Hayward - food writer

Last drink: A dry martini, white Lirac or Tempier Bandol

I think, over the last few years I’ve managed to cut back on drinking wine ‘functionally’ - having a bottle to chill out at the end of the day seems disrespectful to self and to the wine. So if I needed something to steady my nerves before walking out to the stake and refusing a blindfold, it would be a large, very cold, very dry martini. No question. It’s the supreme functional attitude adjuster. 

If we’re talking pleasure…. hmmm… that’s a question. If there was a last meal involved too, I’d have dressed crab, chips and a white Lirac - Cuvée de la Reine des Bois Blanc Domaine de la Mordorée - but chilled as I have very little class. Without food, almost any Domaine de Tempier Bandol.

Stephen Harris - chef and author

Last drink: Krug 2000 

 I suppose I would have to choose the best champagne I have ever drunk, which would be Krug 2000 although when I drank it it was only 12 years old so it may be different now. I also love the wines of Jerome Prevost - when they have been allowed to age a bit - and I have a box of his 2014 base ready for a special day. I suppose the day of my demise would be significant enough.

William Sitwell - writer and Masterchef judge 

Last drink: Kuru Kuru Pinot Noir 2008

I’d like a bottle of New Zealand pinot noir from the Kuru Kuru winery in Bendigo, Central Otago, preferably a rare 2008. Pinot noir is, obviously, the greatest grape for red, needing care to grow (as we learn from the greatest wine movie, if not simply greatest movie, Sideways). This wine achieves that miracle balance of deepness and light and being a hard bottle to find and the winery a very long way from where I normally am I’ll drink it with increasing calm and pleasure. I’ll laugh about that mad film, ponder on the wonder of pinot and become befuddled with happy, sweet thoughts. By the time I’m wondering about a second bottle they can chop off my head and I won’t mind too much. 

Edward Chisholm, author of A Waiter in Paris

Last drink: Gevrey-Chambertin.

My initial thought was a Gevrey-Chambertin, a bottle of which was the entirety of my inheritance when my grandfather died in my late-teens. I didn't know too much about wine. All I could deduce was that it was dusty and looked expensive – so it stayed in my cupboard awaiting further instructions. Then one day I saw one of the most beautiful girls, just outside of the main university building: she was smoking, had dark hair and dark sunglasses, a leather jacket, red lipstick, high heels and a short skirt. Looked like she'd walked off a nouvelle vague film set. All anyone could tell me was that she was French and called Eveline. I was probably amongst a whole host of uncivilised English boys vying for her attention but the promise of "an excellent bottle of French wine," piqued her interest and she agreed on a date. Fast forward a few days later and with one deft pop of the cork I had opened a new interest in life whilst simultaneously elevating myself to something of a man of culture in Eveline's eyes. The wine held all the promise of the night and weeks to come: it was distinctly French, incredibly complex, highly spontaneous, with a firm structure, and of course a hint of leather... The romance with Eveline was fleeting, however a long love affair with Burgundy had just begun.

Alice Lascelles - journalist and martini enthusiast

Last drink: Bereche et Fils Brut Reserve

Definitely champagne - it would feel like giving two fingers to gun wielders. If I sabraged the cork just right it might even take the firing squad out in the process. I'd want something fresh and here-and-now rather than really old, grand and reflective – if I had a glass of Bereche et Fils's elegant Brut Reserve, with its notes of osmanthus, white almond, wet chalk and slight saltiness, I would die happy. 

Glen David Gold - author of Carter Beats in Devil and other works 

Last drink: Jasud Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 

My wife, who is a Capricorn, always fact checks hypotheticals.  "Burgundy is for people who love to make excuses" is her phrase. No matter how many stories you tell yourself about a particular bottle, once you open it up, the whole story is really what you're tasting in the moment. If the concept is "Now that I've tasted X, I can die," what if X doesn't live up to a wine I already tasted before? What if it needed air, or another 10 years on its side, or god forbid what if I'm to be executed on a root day? 

I plan on being executed in about 30 years (on a flower day), thank you, and my last drink will be the 2021 Jasud Cabernet Sauvignon. IYKYK, and IYDK, Jasud is the culmination of the life's work of Ketan Mody, who might be the most interesting wine-maker in America. The story behind the vines is Fitzcarraldo-like and insane, but what's in the glass turns out to be just as insane. I was lucky to taste it in barrel, and it was the most exciting wine I've ever had. Having it at apogee would make the whole firing-squad thing go down a little easier.