‘More to my taste is Trockenbeerenkapitalismus,’ said my husband with an intonation that indicated a joke. The joke was a play on the German Spätkapitalismus, ‘late capitalism’. There is also a German wine category called Spätlese, ‘late harvest’, and another, when the grapes are exposed to noble rot and allowed to wither on the vine, called Trockenbeerenauslese.