My favourite folly was the one Lord Berners erected in the grounds of his country seat Faringdon House. A tower, Berners placed a sign “members of the public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk” outside. His lawyer probably insisted on it – something legal eagle Howard Bilton would know all about. Howard’s folly is of a liquid kind – an Alvarinho 2010 from Moncão in the Vinho Verde region of Portugal. Made by David Baverstock, whose day job is making wine at Esporão or for Cliff Richard in the Algarve, it is ripe and tropically fruited with a broad seam of minerality running through it like a Roman road, as they do in rural Portugal. Talk about linear flavours!
Freddie Grimbeek and a bottle of Howard's Folly
