The Economist UK - 16.11.2019

The EconomistNovember 16th 2019 Europe 33

L

eonardo da vinciis remembered as

many things—artist, inventor, scien-

tist. “Boozer”, however, is rarely included

on the archetypal polymath’s astonish-

ingcv. That might change now that

scientists have resurrected da Vinci’s

own vineyard.

Da Vinci was a great lover of wine,

“the divine liquor of the grape”, as he

called it. So much so that Ludivoco Sfor-

za, the Duke of Milan, offered him a

vineyard as payment for “The Last Sup-

per”, which he painted for the refectory

of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Gra-

zie in Milan in 1498. It survived for centu-

ries after his death, until it was destroyed

by a fire started by Allied bombs in 1943.

With it was lost any hope of seeking

inspiration from the same liquid source

that once fuelled the painter of “Mona

Lisa” and the inventor of the helicopter.

That is, until 2007, when Luca Maro-

ni, an oenologist, decided to excavate the

site in the hope that some vine-roots had

survived the fire. He recruited Attilio

Scienza, an expert on viniculture, and

Serena Imazio, a geneticist, and they

began to dig. Finding some roots intact,

the team subjected them to extensive

genetic testing at the Università degli

Studi in Milan. In 2009 they identified da

Vinci’s grapes as Malvasia di Candia

Aromatica, a variety that is still grown in

Italy today.

That discovery set off a painstaking

recreation of da Vinci’s vineyard. Dr

Imazio scoured Italy to find grapes simi-

lar to thednaprofile of the roots, bring-

ing them back to Milan and copying the

original layout of the vineyard as exactly

as possible. Located in the gardens of the

Casa degli Atellani, just two minutes’

walk from “The Last Supper”, it has been

open to visitors since 2015.

The vineyard produced its first har-

vest in September 2018. Now, after a long

wait, da Vinci’s wine is ready to drink. A

first 330 bottles, based on a design found

in da Vinci’s Codex Windsor, will be

auctioned later this year. For those not

lucky enough to grab a bottle, the vine-

yards of the nearby Castello di Luzzano,

also thought to have been the property of

the Duke of Milan, produce a wine made

from the same type of grape and inspired

by da Vinci. You can enjoy a glass after a

pleasant stroll through his vineyard.

Light and floral, you can almost taste in it

a hint of Leonardo’s renaissance.

Old wine in new bottles

Italy

500 years after his death, wine connoisseurs can once again drink

Leonardo da Vinci’s wine

I

n july 2015Maria Bailey, then a 39-year-

old local councillor in Dun Laoghaire, ran

a 10km race in under 54 minutes. Her cred-

itable time, recorded on the race’s website,

came back to haunt her in May, when it

emerged that Ms Bailey—now an mp—was

seeking up to €60,000 in compensation for

a fall, three weeks before the race, which

she claimed had left her unable to run for

three months. Enjoying a convivial night

out, Ms Bailey had suffered minor injuries

when she fell off an “unsupervised” swing

in a trendy Dublin hotel. She withdrew her

claim soon after news of it broke.

For many people, the case was a particu-

larly galling example of Ireland’s “compo

culture”, an epidemic of dubious compen-

sation claims, extravagant awards and

soaring insurance premiums that is blight-

ing small business, forcing drivers off the

road and stifling public activities, includ-

ing local festivals.

“Sports clubs and community groups

aren’t able to offer the same services they

used to,” says Peter Boland, director of the

Alliance for Insurance Reform, a coalition

of businesses, sporting bodies and ngos.

“We have a crisis of childhood obesity, but

many primary schools don’t let children

run in the playground any more, or play

football informally, because they’re afraid

of injury claims. It is shrinking society.”

Insurance companies complain that

Irish courts pay out much more than their

Western peers for short-term, soft-tissue

injuries like whiplash. A recent inquiry

found that the average soft-tissue payout

in Ireland was just under €20,000, four

times the average in Britain. Such large

quantities of cash do seem to have curative

value. Last month the Irish Timesreported

that 90% of whiplash patients attending

one Dublin pain clinic stopped showing up

as soon as compensation was paid.

Lawyers disagree. They blame Ireland’s

insurance companies, which they accuse

of exaggerating the problem to cover for

premiums and profits that are increasing

out of proportion to any rise in payouts. To

reduce awards, argues Ken Murphy, direc-

tor-general of the professional body for so-

licitors, would “merely be to take from the

pockets of injured victims of negligence in

order to line the pockets of an increasingly

profitable insurance industry”.

This summer the government set up a

judicial council that might, eventually, cap

compensation for minor injuries. Little has

yet been done, however, to remedy a dearth

of investigations for insurance fraud. Earli-

er this year a parliamentary committee re-

vealed that the insurance companies,

while claiming that 20% of all claims are

fraudulent, had only referred 19 cases to

police in a recent six-month period.

Meanwhile, small businesses fear the

worst. Gerry Frawley of the Irish Inflatable

Hirers Federation frets that the last insurer

willing to cover the bouncy-castle indus-

try—a London-based underwriter—has

just pulled out of Ireland. “The responsible

people will go out of business in the next

year,” he warns, “and the cowboys who nev-

er cared about safety or insurance or

checks or registration will be renting play

equipment to your children.” What some

seek to gain on the swings, others will lose

on the bouncy castles. 7

DUBLIN

Ireland’s insurance premiums have

rocketed

Ireland

Compo crisis