Drink
Diary
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
Oporto
‘When he’s away, the thing he misses about Porto is the tripe.’ I was talking to Eduarda Sandeman, wife of…
Young guns
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles began proceedings with a report on the activities of our junior branch. These youngsters…
Deep Burgundy
‘There lies the dearest freshness deep down things’ — and also the dearest Frenchness. It is easy to be rude…
The claret of the gods
I cannot remember a jollier lunch. There are two brothers, Sebastian and Nicholas Payne, both practical epicureans. They have made…
Claret and blues
There is a dive near St James’s which could claim to be the epicentre of international reaction. It is also…
Spawn of the devil
There are those who claim that this column is idiosyncratic. They have seen nothing yet. I am about to mention…
A taste of heaven on earth
The supermarket chains are not always blameworthy. Their missionary efforts have helped to ensure that wine drinking in Britain is…
A rum encounter
For many years, the Central American republic of Guatemala had a grievance against the United Kingdom. It claimed sovereignty over…
A toast to Spain
Towards the chimes at midnight, a few of us left a — respectable — establishment near Leicester Square. Eight or…
From puppy to Pinot
Meeting to taste wine, we started by talking about dogs. Roy Hattersley is good on the subject, which ought to…
A divided inheritance
When we consider poets who perished before their day, thoughts turn to the Romantics or the war victims: Burns, Keats,…
The spirit of Prohibition
It is an old adage, but still pertinent. ‘Every generalisation about India is true, and so is the opposite.’ The…
Burgundian battles
There is only one answer to the question ‘Burgundy or claret?’ ‘Yes, but never in the same glass.’ Yet I…
When did we become a nation of narks?
There’s a danger that in what follows your columnist may seem to be recommending an attitude. Please don’t think that.…
The heroes of Cognac
The chestnut trees were still resplendent in yellow leaf along the banks of a misty autumn river on its glide…
Cider-making
The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in…
Sin city
When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are…
Last of the lunchtime wine
This is a tale of two lunches, sort of. The first was a classically English affair. We started with native…
The real French embassy
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Rough-Huhne
I love Grayson Perry. You might almost call him the anti-Russell Brand: a genuinely talented artist who also has some…
In praise of Japanese Bordeaux
Château Lagrange, a St Julien third growth, has the largest acreage of any Bordeaux classed growth. For much of the…
Three sisterhoods
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles has been mentioned in this column before. I can report that the membership is…
From horses to glasses
A stint in dry dock — the ‘dry’ literally — has one advantage. There is time for lots of long…
Bitter
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ is one of husband’s stock phrases — jokes he would think them — in this…
