Drink
Wines to toast a warrior saint
Towards the chimes at midnight, a few of us left a — respectable — establishment near Leicester Square. Eight or…
A dog to remember (and the wine he inspired)
Meeting to taste wine, we started by talking about dogs. Roy Hattersley is good on the subject, which ought to…
France, England and the tragedy of DSK
When we consider poets who perished before their day, thoughts turn to the Romantics or the war victims: Burns, Keats,…
The spirit of Prohibition lives (if you’re a haggis)
It is an old adage, but still pertinent. ‘Every generalisation about India is true, and so is the opposite.’ The…
The battling brilliance of Burgundy
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 police informers?
There’s a danger that in what follows your columnist may seem to be recommending an attitude. Please don’t think that.…
Cognac and the Viking connection in la France profonde
The chestnut trees were still resplendent in yellow leaf along the banks of a misty autumn river on its glide…
The birth of a barrel of cider
The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in…
The recruitment company to go to if you've got no arms or legs
When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are…
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…
James Delingpole falls in love with Grayson Perry - and almost comes round to Chris Huhne
I love Grayson Perry. You might almost call him the anti-Russell Brand: a genuinely talented artist who also has some…
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…
The Society of Odd Bottles and the Sisterhood of the Black Pudding
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles has been mentioned in this column before. I can report that the membership is…
Horse racing, Sancerre and escaped lobsters
A stint in dry dock — the ‘dry’ literally — has one advantage. There is time for lots of long…
A bitter struggle with the dictionary
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ is one of husband’s stock phrases — jokes he would think them — in this…
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…
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…
A military funeral for a heroic vintage
Alas, the ’63 ports are beginning to fade. I came to that conclusion the last time I tasted a Warre’s,…
If Ed Miliband can’t be our first Jewish prime minister, he can still be our 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.…
What Quique Dacosta knows that Picasso didn’t
Chefs have a problem. Think of much of the best food you have ever eaten. Caviar, English native oysters, sashimi,…
A spirit to warm Bruegel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’
The ostensible subject matter is misleading, as is any conflation with his lesser relatives’ wassailing peasants and roistering village squares.…
Our daily haggis
Give us this day our daily bread: those are also words of great culinary significance. Even if the ‘bread’ takes…
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 …
Christopher Sykes’s diary: David Hockney, Bridlington lobster, and the risks of a third martini
I began my week with a trip to Bridlington, the closest seaside town to my childhood home. ‘Brid’, as it’s…
