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find too dry, whatever the depth of their superstition about the okayness of dryness. “Closely resembling a blend of cold chalk soup and alum cordial with an additive or two to bring it to the colour of children’s pee” was how a character in a novel of mine described, perhaps opinionatedly, the generic white burgundy.

4. Get yourself a first-rate wine merchant. I do not just mean a reputable one who will invariably sell you wholesome drinks at not-excessive prices; they will all do this; I have never yet come across a disreputable wine merchant. What you want is a learned, experienced, energetic man who himself drinks not only good wine but a lot of wine, in other words a first-rate wine merchant. How you find him is another question. Go for a small or smallish firm, who have the chance of getting to know the individual customer and his tastes. Ask your friends. Grab a fellow wine-resenter and make a start on the classified directory.

5. Having found your man, trust him. Ask him for a decent drinkable red you will enjoy yourself and can offer to guests without shame. These days this will cost you £1 a bottle. Resign yourself to that. Also ask for a treat wine for anniversaries and when old Shagbag comes to dinner. This will cost £3 a bottle. Resign yourself to that. There are also, of course, wines at £2, and listen carefully to what your chap says about them. Also take his advice on hocks and moselles, shutting your ears when he rhapsodizes about white burgundies.

6. Grit your teeth and do as much as you can bear of the let-it-settle, bring-it-up-ahead-of-time, open-it-well-before-drinking routine. It really will make a difference. But bear in mind

G.P. 8: Careful preparation will render a poor wine just tolerable and a very nice wine excellent. Skimping it will diminish a pretty fair wine to all right and a superb wine to merely bloody good. That is about as much difference as it will make. Much more important is price, which is normally a very reliable indicator of quality. Nevertheless

You will find that, when you are confident of serving something at least reasonably drinkable, you will be the more anxious to improve it by taking trouble beforehand.

7. Hit your wine merchant across the mouth when, innocently trying to put you on to a good thing, or what he sees as one, he recommends you to “buy for laying down.” It is true that wine improves and increases in value with age, broadly speaking, and that you can save a lot of money (and worry) by seeing to it that the ageing takes place after, rather than before, you buy it. But “Pay now, drink in 1984” strikes me—perhaps me more than most, but indubitably me—as a dreadfully depressing slogan. (It is this consideration, by the way, that hurls out of court any scheme for making your own beer, mead, elderflower wine, etc., though stand ready to drink other people’s home-made brews like mad: they are often amazingly good. “Cork tightly and keep for eighteen months” the books will gaily enjoin, when continuing in suspense for eighteen minutes is rather more than most respectable drink-men would be justified to endure.) Fork out your £1–3 and look and feel pleasant. Life is too short.

8. Keep at hand a good supply of beer, stout and cider, not to speak of stronger waters, to console you when the whole business gets too much for you.

If all be true that I do think

There are five reasons we should drink;

Good wine—a friend—or being dry—

Or lest we should be by and by—

Or any other reason why.

—HENRY ALDRICH (1648–1710)

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:

Look into the pewter pot

To see the world as the world’s not.

—A. E. HOUSMAN

If ever I marry a wife,

I’ll marry a landlord’s daughter,

For then I may sit in the bar,

And drink cold brandy and water.

—CHARLES LAMB

I would to God that I were so much clay

As I am blood, bone, matter, passion, feeling;

For then at least the past were past away,

And for the future—but I write this reeling,

Having got drunk exceedingly today,

So that I seem to stand upon the