Drink
Weekend world
When the time comes to make programmes looking back on the 2010s, I wonder which aspects of life today will…
Drinking at school with Plato
Rugby and Ampleforth schools have decided to give their charges experience of sensible drinking by introducing a little alcohol, under…
Commanding vintages
As the bottles flowed, the talk ranged, to a serious vineyard, an awesome Field Marshal and a delightful restauranteur. For…
Even great wine can’t quite give me hope for Lebanon
Housman had a point. If men could be drunk for ever, the human condition would be tolerable. But thought always…
Guinness and oysters — or beef and Haut-Brion — in deepest Ireland
We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly…
Manchester has marvellous wines, and it’s not finished yet
It will seem an ungrateful comment after the lunch which I am about to describe, but Manchester has some way…
Club mischief
When it comes to nightclubs, many have written, but none has surpassed the Perroquet in Debra Dowa. Le tout Debra…
Stewed Siena
The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin;…
In search of the platonic gazpacho
We were eating tapas and talking about Spain. Leaving caviar on one side, when jamón ibérico is at its best,…
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…
