Drink
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…
Escape to Burgundy
There have been some splendid rumours about my health. According to the most exotic, I was cas-evacked from a hill…
Port and daughters
Port, or Hermitage? This does not refer to personal consumption. I was trying to remember Meredith’s Egoist, in which one…
A military port
Alas, the ’63 ports are beginning to fade. I came to that conclusion the last time I tasted a Warre’s,…
Ed Miliband could be the first atheist Jewish prime minister from Primrose Hill
Last weekend, in a small New Jersey suburb, I found myself in a liquor store. Never been anywhere like it.…
New ways to open a bottle
Chefs have a problem. Think of much of the best food you have ever eaten. Caviar, English native oysters, sashimi,…
Spirits of Bruegel
The ostensible subject matter is misleading, as is any conflation with his lesser relatives’ wassailing peasants and roistering village squares.…
Burns Night bottles
Give us this day our daily bread: those are also words of great culinary significance. Even if the ‘bread’ takes…
Bottled opera
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
Diary
I began my week with a trip to Bridlington, the closest seaside town to my childhood home. ‘Brid’, as it’s…
Gillard and the Grange Hermitage
My Australian friend was in mourning over the removal of Julia Gillard, the country’s first female prime minister. She had…
