Dave Hennings’ Crossword Database tells me that this is JFD’s fifth Listener crossword.
I looked at the summaries to remind myself of the themes and find that there were the French language, wine, and literary and biblical quotations in them (and, yes, I had really enjoyed all of them – we don’t necessarily even like some of the ones we blog but Jane Teather wisely says, “If you don’t like them, say nothing”). Plenty to say here!
I have to start and finish with the wine, don’t I? We shall have to award a Listener Oenophile fellowship to JFD. The clues were overflowing with alcohol: ‘Old farts drink case of Rioja in heart of Jaén (6)’ That gave GO RA in AE – AGORAE which were old Marts – our first corrected misprint. Then there was ‘Stale dead wine description in paper (4)’ AC, for ‘appelation controlée’ went in to the usual FT newspaper to give us an old term (stale) for a deEd (another corrected misprint) FACT.
‘Cork’s put in Italian white not finished by drunken hero (7’). We used AST[i] (another crossword favourite) with HORE* to give ASTHORE which Chambers tells me is Cork’s ‘pEt. How very clever some of these clues were (and tricky – see below) and how brilliant of JFD to echo his vinous theme in the clues. ‘Curiously abusing strong drink in Utah (3)’ gave a double definition clue – RUM with an M corrected misprint – aMusing. We had ports, changing to pArts in the next clue and ‘Sample vintage early in the jar for some (4)’ giving AGEE – On the jar for some!), and still more, ‘Tavel’s lowest in French wine rules (7)’ That gave L in GRAVES leading to an obscure word GRAVELS (rIles as the misprint).
I consulted the other half of the Dash blogging team about the wordplay of clues I had found tough and he responded:
ROVER – See Chambers definition 7. w/p ROWER with the W “halved” to V
PERRY – RY (railway, track system) after PER = A. Perry was a tennis star so “racket expert” though I find the idea of it being Katie Perry as a rocket expert amusing.
SAPPERS – “people digging” – SA (it) + PS (horsepower) outside PER (according to)
OLENT – “smelling: – ORE N’T with R changed to L (R and L are both “liquids” in phonetics)
Some tricky ones there!
With all that wine and ‘wordplay only’ clues that gave VOLVIC, SAN PELLEGRINO (I used to translate Italian to English for school groups on visits there, there was plenty of water that was rather smelly when they used the sulfurous San Pellegrino water baths!) and PERRIER, it wasn’t difficult to see what we had to do when those letters at the foot of the grid suggested WEDDING AT CANA. The first miracle Jesus performed, turning water into wine. The corrected misprints had told us to MAKE THREE TRANSFORMATIONS and HIGHLIGHT A LOCATION. We were being instructed to convert that water into wine. Mrs Bradford (Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary) suggested MONTEPULCIANO to me and BARSAC but I had trouble spotting POMEROL. (TEA suggested TENEDOS – yes, there is Tenedos wine, HERRIOT, and REARDON, all of which have wine links but we know that if we are not totally convinced, it isn’t the correct solution).
What an intoxicating crossword JFD! Delightful!