Cloudy Bay - wine column

Sebastian Morello enjoys a fine New Zealand tipple while pondering the Lord of the Rings

Almost nothing about New Zealand interests me. ‘Almost’ being the important word, as I’m certainly aware that New Zealand has a breathtaking landscape, a remarkable hunting culture in which you can stalk monster 18 pointer red stags on the hills, and most importantly it is one of the most successful new world wine countries. By ‘successful’, I do not mean it produces more in quantity than other new world wines, but in general it exceeds other new world countries in the quality of its wines—even those of South Africa.

New Zealand is of course the place where the wonderful film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings were shot. I love those films, but of course, there are aspects of them that are profoundly regrettable. The replacement of great elf lord Glorfindel with Arwen was a terrible mistake, and it warped the viewer’s notion of the latter, an elf princess whose power is in healing and not in wielding a sword.

Glorfindel was an important figure in The Silmarillion; in 1972, Tolkien wrote an essay explaining how Glorfindel returned to Middle-Earth following his death in the First Age of Arda. After perishing, Glorfindel was restored by the gods and thereafter he dwelt in Valinor, the land of the gods. Living among the greater and lesser gods—the Valar and the Maiar—his power greatly enhanced, so that he seemed like one of the Maiar himself. Glorfindel was then sent back to Middle-Earth by the Valar when the dark lord Sauron forged the One Ring. And thus, he was there to save Frodo from the Nazgûl after the hobbit was pierced by the Witch-king’s Morgul-blade. For Tolkienians, Glorfindel’s erasure from the story by film director Peter Jackson was truly scandalous.

Deleting Glorfindel, however, was nothing compared to removing Tom Bombadil, his wife Goldberry, and the whole episode with the Barrow-wights, during which Bombadil rescued the hobbits from near death at the very beginning of their adventure. Those who think that Bombadil is ‘non-essential’ to the story do not understand the esoterica underpinning the Tolkienian saga.

Bombadil is the personification of nature. Or better, the animating force of nature personified—the ‘Master of the Wood’, as his spouse calls him. Bombadil is accompanied by beauty herself, Goldberry, ‘Daughter of the River’, because beauty is that for which Bombadil lives, and in praise of it he riddles.

We do not understand Bombadil because we have grown alien to ourselves and uprooted from the world that is our proper home. Bombadil is the geniusloci, the living sacrality of the particular place, the embodiment of all things green and living. It is for this reason that Gandalf the wizard, at the end of The Lord of the Rings, departs to meet with Bombadil: it is in Bombadil that all must be reconciled— for he bears the face of creation. Hence, it is frankly unforgivable that Bombadil was excluded from the films. To that great Oxford bard, Bombadil was all that comes to itself when redeemed by grace.

When the hobbits sit at the table of Tom Bombadil, and are waited on by the glorious Goldberry—whom Frodo will only address as ‘fair lady’—they together drink a peculiar draught:

“The hobbits were seated at the table, two on each side, while at either end sat Goldberry and the Master. It was a long and merry meal. Though the hobbits ate, as only famished hobbits can eat, there was no lack. The drink in their drinking-bowls seemed to be clear cold water, yet it went to their hearts like wine and set free their voices. The guests became suddenly aware that they were singing merrily, as if it was easier and more natural than talking.”

A long, merry, and very large meal, during which the drink opens the heart and frees the voice, causing all to sing as if it were easier than talking—Tolkien is here describing the kind of meal that is natural to Catholic cultures, be they those of Italy, Spain, or Ireland. Tolkien presents to us in high fantasy the everyday joy that his religion gave the world in all the cultures it touched.

We should learn from Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. Make this world, with its forests and rivers, your home. Be with your friends, eat long meals, drink wine, and sing! Let the wine free your voice!

To restore New Zealand’s honour, after being the country where Bombadil was erased from Tolkien’s Legendarium, drink at your next friendly gathering the pinot noir of Marlborough’s Cloudy Bay. It is an exquisite wine. It’s like a very highquality, old-style Burgundy. It tastes best with friends and food and song, and such things are of the gravest importance in our times, when, to quote Bombadil, “the world is in shadow”.