My day in the vineyard this week felt like a grey-scale rendered version of reality. A heavy slate sky had leached all the colour from the fields and enshrouded the near distance with thick mist. It was a life-size realisation of a nuclear winter: quiet, still, lightless, cold. Each cloud of breath exhaled brought the murky cloak a little closer. Now, pruning is hardly a jolly job at the best of times, but in these conditions it became absolute drudgery. Nevertheless, our little team of viticulturists mustered some festive spirit from somewhere and set to work with the ongoing task of readying the vines to be trained before the...