Yesterday, a dinner guest brought over a special Shakespeare-related bottle of wine: Villa Calappiano Chanti. Here's the blurb on the back of the bottle:
"Walter Savage Landor is actually considered the most important biographer of William Shakespeare. He lived at the beginning of 1800 with his family in the Villa Calappiano, where he left many paints and operas, so much that the estate is also reminded on the books like 'The English Villa' [sic] This land, rich of resources and beauties, has always inspired great operas. Villa Calappiano celebrates, with its wines, this long tradition"
Hoo-boy, looks like someone got down with the wine before writing that thing. I franticially looked up Landor in any case; if he's so important, I better know something about him, right? Well, I discovered that he authored a volume entitled "Shakespeare's Examinations of Deer Stealing" and, supposedly, that his parents were so embarassed by his tempermental behavior that they insisted he make himself scarce whenever guests came over. So I'm still a little skeptical about the claim that Landor's "considered the most important biographer of Shakespeare." Perhaps an expert on Shakespeare's images of and allusions to deer theft, but that's a different matter.
I'll tell you what I do know, though. That wine tasted really good with this:
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