Wine and warfare part 3: Pedro Ximénez

(TDB) - The legend of Pedro Ximénez

Remaining in the Low Countries after the last installment, this is a tale clouded in myth.

It concerns a grape variety and possibly a man too – the name? Pedro Ximénez…or maybe Siemens…or Ximen; one immediately senses trouble with the story’s veracity.

Having not indulged the Shiraz/Syrah Roman myth let us indulge two possibilities here, particularly as both involve tales of military conquest and some of Europe’s most interesting dynastic wrangling.

The most far-fetched story holds that the grape originated in the Canary Islands, made its way to the Rhine by means largely unexplained and was then brought back to Spain by either a Spanish soldier or a sailor – we shall imagine he was a soldier.

All in all, an extremely fortuitous circle of events.

Some readers may be perplexed by the use of the phrase, “Spanish Netherlands” which has cropped up intermittently in the story thus far and a brief explanation is required as it explains how the idea of a Spanish soldier bringing home a grape from the Rhinelands gained any credence – or at least how the myth took shape.

What follows is an extremely brief explanation of some wonderfully complicated European dynastic genealogy, it may be a little off topic but it will hopefully prove enlightening.

From the late 14^th century, the Dukes of Burgundy (incidentally the first of them, Philip the Bold, banning Gamay from the Côte d’Or), descended from king John II of France, had acquired huge territory, wealth and power through clever marriages and inheritance.

Their territories stretched up from the Burgundy we know and love today to the Low Countries where they enjoyed control over the wool trade based in Flanders and Artois.