Wine writer RICHARD CALVER reveals the opening line to a column he didn’t write in November, when he attended the Latin American Cultural and Gastronomic Festival, Edition VII. The facts got in the way. 

IN the distant past, I studied for a Bachelor of Arts in literature and was awarded that degree in 1988. 

We had an excellent teacher who helped us craft creative writing by, amongst other things, asking us to start a piece by using a first line from a well-known poem or novel. 

This is a good technique to spark the creative juices; as novelist Ursula Le Guin said, the first lines are “doors to worlds”. 

My favourite, when in a downbeat mood, has to be Sylvia Plath’s opening line in The Bell Jar: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” This line grabs your attention and sets the mood for the book in a swift punch to the metaphoric gut. 

I was very pleased with myself then when I crafted a first line about the Albariño grape variety when I tasted a lovely example produced by the nation of Uruguay. 

That occurred in November at an event called the Latin American Cultural and Gastronomic Festival, Edition VII. Thirteen countries were represented: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, México, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú and Uruguay.

The food and the wine were memorable. I particularly liked the Garzon Reserva 2021 Albarino. My notes from that night indicate that I thought that the wine had a lovely peach nose and on taste a balance between acidity and floral fruit characteristics that made it a good accompaniment to the rice-based dishes that were served. The wine stood out as fresh and supple, my first choice for the evening. I said as much to a woman who I met in the crowded venue: she introduced herself as the Spanish ambassador. 

Her memorable words were to form my first line in an article never written on the wines served at this event: “Yes, when you are enjoying this wine remember, it is a Spanish grape.” 

I didn’t use that line because when I sat down to write, it became evident that Albariño’s parentage is unclear. One theory is that it’s closely related to the French grape Petit Manseng, and the other is that it’s a riesling clone from Alsace. However, it is now, in a number of articles I read, recognised as a premium wine grape emanating from Spain. 

As for its place in Australia, it is a wine that was thought to have been planted in the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria’s wine region. 

Around 150 hectares were planted. But in 2009 it was discovered that these wines were in fact savagnin, albeit they had been labelled Albarino. Savagnin is a grape variety from the Jura region of France and apparently the mistake was made in the CSIRO’s plant collection. 

I can put hand on heart and say that I’ve never tried an Australian Albariño, along with a swag of other people who thought they were drinking Albarino produced on the Mornington Peninsula. 

So, those comments bring me back to the issue of the cogency of first lines. In the seeming chase for an Australian Albariño, its perhaps fitting that I choose the opening line from a book that tantalised readers in the 1950s: “I am an invisible man.” 

This opens one of the most fascinating books I read as a teenager, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The fascination sparked by the opening line is present in every page of this memorable book. First lines count, and it seems Australian Albarino has the same commencing dilemma. 

“The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”
–Blaise Pascal, Pensées