Wine
Not a barrel of laughs: a history of hogsheads, kegs and puncheons
Few people, perhaps, will immediately seize on this title as just the thing for a relative’s Christmas, even if their…
The great lunchtime wine showdown
This is a tale of two lunches, sort of. The first was a classically English affair. We started with native…
The real French embassy is a restaurant
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Wine merchants might just be the happiest people in the world
A delightful girl came to see me this morning. She is helping with the research for a biography of David…
The secret kinship of good wine and good cricket
A high proportion of wine-lovers also enjoy cricket, and vice versa. This might seem natural. Anyone with an aesthetic temperament…
Proof that the Japanese know how to make great Bordeaux
Château Lagrange, a St Julien third growth, has the largest acreage of any Bordeaux classed growth. For much of the…
Horse racing, Sancerre and escaped lobsters
A stint in dry dock — the ‘dry’ literally — has one advantage. There is time for lots of long…
Visiting Burgundy from my hospital bed
There have been some splendid rumours about my health. According to the most exotic, I was cas-evacked from a hill…
Dear Mary: How can I make my polite English husband interrupt like a German?
Q. My dear English husband has never mastered the knack of timing his interventions in conversation. He hesitates politely, and…
Some consumer advice: do not sell your daughter for a bottle of 90-year-old port
Port, or Hermitage? This does not refer to personal consumption. I was trying to remember Meredith’s Egoist, in which one…
Our daily haggis
Give us this day our daily bread: those are also words of great culinary significance. Even if the ‘bread’ takes…
Drink: The great white Burgundy disaster
We agreed that it was the gravest crisis facing mankind. It has led to dashed hopes, widespread grief and a…
When Glyndebourne is the most perfect place on earth
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
The greatest novel in English – and how to drink it
Which is the greatest novel in the English language? Let us review the candidates: Clarissa, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, The…
Mourning Julia Gillard with the greatest wine ever to come out of Australia
My Australian friend was in mourning over the removal of Julia Gillard, the country’s first female prime minister. She had…
