Kilometer zero forced

The enterprising, extraordinary, talented, visionary, scientific, lunatic, and expeditious widow Clicquot (one of the two grand dames of bubbly born on December 16th) had already suffered from tariffs.

In 1813, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, France was maintaining a trade blockade with Russia. Our widow then decided to smuggle the bottles in. The story of how she did it is an exciting adventure, which begins with her inviting the army to an open bar in her wine cellar, but, once the entire soldiery was already sleeping off their considerable hangover, she took a cart full of camouflaged bottles out onto a ship bound for present-day Kaliningrad. Those forbidden bottles—which the tsars drank in secret—had to be the first to be there when the peace was to be celebrated. And they had to bear the yellow label, in homage—so they say—to the houses in St. Petersburg, where they arrived.

The crazy juggler Donald Trump said this week that he will impose 200% tariffs on European bottles that land in his kingdom. This means, for example, that if the NBA wanted to once again give LeBron James a Vall Llach from Priorat, bought in Los Angeles, as it did, it couldn't. This condemns Catalan wines (and I include sparkling wines) to impossible prices.

Good. It's the time of kilometer zero. There's little wineries can do against this man, who one day wants to buy Greenland and the next day build a Marina de Oro in the Gaza Strip. But we, the consumers, can do a lot. It's time to get to know, taste, and enjoy our wines, which until now have been recognized and drunk all over the world. We, and especially we, must enjoy Catalan wine (like oil, nuts, bread, preserves, etc.) here. Shall we start today?