Wine Bill Knott

DRINKING IN DRY CULTURES

Anyone who, like me, seeks to combine a fondness for alcohol with mildly intrepid travel will know the problem. Not the tricky pre-prandial choice between a martini and a G&T, or whether Burgundy or claret might better suit the Sunday roast, but how to get any kind of drink at all. For me, it has sometimes bordered on an obsession

It may be an inherited condition. My father, during family holidays in rural Wales in the ‘dry’ 1970s (so-called because of the ban on Sunday drinking, not because of the weather, which was invariably the opposite) became so preoccupied with finding a Sunday tipple that we would often take a train to nowhere-in-particular and back again: railways were exempt from the licensing laws, and he could buy a bottle or two of Brains Bitter with impunity. The frisson of transgression, I suspect, made him even more light-headed than the beer itself.

There are countries in the world that regard alcohol even more balefully than a devout habitué of nonconformist chapels. In Bangladesh, I befriended a restaurateur who proudly showed me a medical card which, so he said, proved he was a ‘licensed alcoholic’, rather bizarrely allowing him to purchase – despite his Muslim faith – rather good single malt whisky, which he was kind enough to share.

In Kandy, Sri Lanka, on a full-moon day when alcohol sales are banned, I was served a teapot full of Lion Lager in a Chinese restaurant, while the teapot came in handy again, on Magha Puja day last February, at dinner in a Bangkok restaurant popular with foreigners. I was not alone: each table hosted at least one pot, and every ex-pat was pink-faced and pie-eyed by closing time.

Morocco has an ambivalent attitude to booze, as I discovered recently in Marrakech. Alcohol, in theory, is forbidden to Muslims, but – except during Ramadan – is widely available in hotels and smart restaurants, and even in supermarkets. Tourism is at the heart of Marrakech’s economy, and a ‘dry’ hotel would struggle for business.

The best news for thirsty tourists is the local wine. The country’s colonial legacy included 55,000 hectares of vineyards, but – after the French left in 1956 – many vineyards were grubbed up, the state took over much of the remainder, and the resulting wines were often dull, or simply shipped in bulk to beef up Bordeaux in a dodgy year.

Now, however, the wine industry is resurgent, with a clutch of good winemakers, modern equipment, some interesting grape varieties and an appreciative market: mostly domestic, but increasingly international.

Reds tend towards the tannic and reward cellaring: Oz Clarke once opened a bottle of Sainsbury’s Moroccan Red for me which he had cellared for 10 years, and it was surprisingly good. Whites can be excellent (Siroua and CB Initiales both make classic, slightly buttery Chardonnays); and the vins gris (pale orange rosés, best made from Cinsaut) are splendidly refreshing in the sometimes sweltering heat of the city.

Moroccan wines are tricky to find in the UK, but not impossible. The Boltonbased Turton Wines (www.turtonwines. co.uk) has a good selection in the £7 to £11 range; Maidenhead Wine (www. maidenheadwine.co.uk) lists 25 or so wines from some of the best producers, to buy by the case; and The Wine Society (www.thewinesociety.co.uk) stocks the splendidly spicy Syrah du Maroc “Tandem” (£11.50), a collaboration with Rhône winemaker Alain Grillot, for which I recommend a decanter, not a teapot.