This story is part of the FT Weekend Magazine’s Archives Issue.
Wine, women and an impromptu prayer session (January 27 2007)
I knew it was a good idea to go to the “classic clarets” dinner. Some crazed benefactor had donated an extraordinary collection of wines for us to taste: Latour 1952. Lafite 1962, Cheval Blanc 1975 — and six others. Seated next to me was Viktor Yanukovych, the prime minister of Ukraine. Since we do not share a common language, we were unable to exchange the usual chit-chat — “faint whiff of pencil shavings”, that sort of thing. In the event, he had to leave halfway through. This was a lucky break for me, since he left behind unfinished samples, which I swiftly poured into my own tasting glasses. It did cross my mind that there have been some unpleasant cases of poisoning involving politicians from this part of the world — so I hesitated briefly before knocking back Yanukovych’s leftovers. But what the hell, you don’t get to taste Latour every day. I’m pretty sure I got away with it.
I do feel fairly appalling this morning, but I think it’s just a standard issue hangover. After the clarets dinner, it was over to the Belvedere Hotel, where the “young global leaders” were having a drinks party in an igloo — to underline their concern about global warming. I got into discussion with a young guy who informed me that he might be about to become prime minister of Serbia. Perhaps I looked sceptical, because he then said — “or maybe deputy prime minister”. I’ve got his card, anyway. Talking of future prime ministers, I then spotted the leader of Britain’s Tories at the other side of the room. Emboldened by nine glasses of classic claret plus four margaritas, I glided over to speak to David Cameron. But we hadn’t been talking long before we were interrupted by some gushing German, who launched into an absurdly over-the-top tribute to Cameron — “I admire you sir, I wish you good fortune, you are the future of our continent” — that sort of thing. Cameron nodded politely and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Don’t laugh,” which rather endeared him to me. At this point, there was a further interruption. A young global leader announced that we now had to listen to a discussion on climate change between Shimon Peres and the actress Claudia Schiffer. (I’m not making this up.) When I got back a little later, the discussion was over. An American friend of mine announced in a determined voice, “I’m going to go over and make a pass at Claudia Schiffer.” She walked over to Schiffer and when I left, the two of them were indeed engaged in an animated conversation, but I doubt it went any further.
But the prize for the most peculiar thing to happen to me at Davos on Thursday goes to the enforced prayer session I was roped into. I was walking through the Congress Centre when an Israeli I met on the bus to Davos came up to me and said: “You’re Jewish, right?” I cautiously agreed, at which point he informed me that he was rounding up 10 Jews to say prayers for his late father. Before I knew it, I was ushered into a side room and a paper napkin was placed on my head. In the room were a couple of rabbis with impressive beards, as well as Robert Winston, the father of IVF fertility treatment, and fellow FT columnist Jacob Weisberg. In my confusion, I turned to him and said, “I didn’t even know that Robert Winston was Jewish,” to which he replied evenly, “It’s certainly looking that way, Gideon.” When the prayers started, I turned to him again and muttered: “What do I do now?” He replied: “Stand still and don’t check your email until it’s over.” This ranks as the best piece of advice I have yet received at Davos. Now I have to go and take notes on the CEO forum on talent. Can’t wait.
Some activities shouldn’t involve spitting (January 24 2008)
The theme of this Davos is meant to be “collaborative innovation” — otherwise known as “collovation”. But my personal theme seems to be spitting.
Yesterday morning I gobbed into a glass tube, so that a new company called 23andMe could analyse my DNA. In the evening I went to a wine-tasting, which also involved a bit of spitting. But there are some activities that shouldn’t involve spitting, unless things go badly wrong — like interviewing President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and moderating a session on global political risk this morning.
The two things that most worry me are the DNA and the wine. When I texted my wife to say that I was about to get my DNA tested, she immediately sent back a message asking: “Are you involved in a paternity suit?” Actually, it’s not the threat of undiscovered progeny that worries me as much as the prospect of unearthing disquieting information about my health and ancestry. Could I be Jewish? What if I am related to John Gapper? Am I genetically prone to obesity, or do I just eat too much? I should get the results in a few weeks’ time.
The Davos wine-tasting is usually spectacular. There are a lot of billionaires here who think nothing of contributing a few bottles of Château Lafite. Jancis Robinson of the FT hosts it, and last year there was a good turn-out of Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. (I think Jancis and the Oligarchs would make a good name for a pop group.) Actually, as far as I recall there wasn’t much spitting last year, which is probably a good thing, since these oligarchs can be an uncouth bunch.
Still, it could have been a problem for me, since I had to be up early this morning asking piercing questions about geopolitics. I know it is vulgar to suggest that you might get drunk at a tasting of fine wines — it’s meant to be more like art appreciation than a piss-up. But these particular art objects double as alcoholic beverages. And if you drink eight glasses of red wine — no matter how distinguished — it can have an effect on your mental acuity the next day. One answer is not to drink the whole glass and just to have a sip of each sample. But that seems such a waste. It’s hard to justify throwing hundreds of dollars of wine down the sink when there are people starving.
Another problem for me at Davos is that, while I keep bumping into famous people, I can never think of anything to say to them. Yesterday morning the first person I saw as I left my hotel was George Soros. I fell into step with him, and after a long pause said something like: “It’s looking quite bad on the markets, isn’t it?” He agreed. Definitely a bit dodgy. I’ve heard it from Soros himself.
Perhaps it is easier if you fail to recognise the person you are dealing with. It turns out that the young woman in the lab coat who bottled up my spit is the wife of Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. Presumably she has enough money never to have to handle bottled spit again in her lifetime. It’s impressive she keeps at it.
Wine delegates revive taste of the good times (January 28 2010)
In previous years, one of the highlights of the Davos forum was a small but spectacular tasting of fine wines. But last year Klaus Schwab, the forum’s mastermind, decided that guzzling first-growth clarets was an inappropriate way of celebrating the global economic meltdown — and the wine-tasting was cancelled. We all hoped that this was a temporary aberration, but apparently not.
The new Puritanism is here to stay: Davos wine-tastings are off the menu until further notice.
But you cannot deter dedicated wine-tasters that easily. Last night a wine-tasting was organised by former Davos employees who have formed a new organisation called the Wine Forum. It took place in a conference room in an airport hotel in Zurich at 6pm — a time and a location specifically designed to intercept delegates en route to Davos.
Jancis Robinson of the FT was mistress-of-ceremonies and the wines were provided by Krug and châteaux Cheval Blanc and Yquem. One of the malign results of globalisation is that these wines, which were once affordable to the likes of me, are now global brands cherished by the super-rich and therefore mesmerisingly expensive. I have never understood why the anti-globalisation movement does not make more of this issue. The 1959 Château Yquem that we tasted last night now sells for about £1,600 ($2,560, €1,845) a bottle — each gulp that I took would have made a small contribution to paying off my mortgage. The Cheval Blanc 1998 is about £400 a bottle.
The event last night involved sampling five vintages from each château. This is what is known as a “vertical tasting”, although I’m not quite sure why, since if you actually finished each glass, you are much more likely to end up horizontal. I felt obliged to do my best to drink every last drop, since it seemed kind of immoral to hurl hundreds of pounds’ worth of wine down the sink. Then, at 10pm, I staggered on to the coach for the long and winding drive to Davos, arriving at around one in the morning.
Under the circumstances, I felt remarkably perky in the morning and went to a really good session on geopolitics, which did what Davos does so well — bring together participants from all over the world; in this case from Beijing, Moscow, London, Cairo, Harvard, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Now I am off to a lunch with George Soros.
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