Red Wine

Aggghhhhhh!

Can I just assure you that the above is an exclamation of my mixture of frustration and anxiety at having spilled red wine over my laptop.

You know what this means?  I no longer have to take the ‘Which Big Bang Character Are You’ test twelve times to get to ‘Sheldon’.  I’m Penny.

And it’s a merlot.  A variety that, as was pointed out to me this very evening, is so detestably rough that it has its own scene in the movie ‘Sideways’.

It was bound to happen one day.  Lets face it, the amount of food and drink that falls into the average keyboard could probably feed a family of five for a week and merit its own cookbook and C4 show; ‘Cooking with QUERTY’.

I was expecting one of two things; the final reel of a 007 movie style explosion, or the insides of my laptop fusing into some sort of pissed AI.

Maybe I’ve been saved by the age of the laptop.  Let’s just say that if I used this bad boy in a Starbucks, I would not be mistaken for somebody working on their screenplay, rather I would be taken for somebody trying to e mail 1997.

I bet you couldn’t do that with the new Powerbooks.  Anything short of Petrus spilled on them and they would probably restore to factory settings, meaning you’d have to delete that bloody U2 album all over again.

Write on red

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We continue with…red wine.

In doing so, it would be wrong to ignore the role that red wine has played in art.  By art, I mean proper art, a man at an easel with some oil paints, a glass of thinners, a glass of red wine and, if he’s painting a nude, a semi.  I was once told that artists drank red wine to clear their sinuses, or something.  Knowing artists (as I don’t) it was more probably to stop the voices screaming at them to paint, paint, paint the sky green.

On first inspection, the literary associations with red wine appear obvious, it’s all about the horror novel.  Not only does it look like claret, (actually it sometimes is actually claret), but red wine and other red drinks (strangely never Ribena) appear to be the alcoholic beverage of choice for those who wear rings, have lace at their cuffs and have a LOT of vampire literature on their Kindles.

Let’s make this clear right now.  You only need one vampire novel.  It’s called ‘Salem’s Lot’ and after you read it, you will never want to read any vampire fiction ever again.  Front cover blurb quotes?  I’ve got one for the publisher right here “G&P: this book will FUCK YOU UP!”.

So, moving on…

If you are a writer, you can drink red wine to achieve success in a couple of genres.

The first is horror and, as previously pointed out, it might be cliché but damn if it isn’t good fun to read a ghost story with something red at your elbow.  A bloody good horror story has a sensation of creeping dread much like the way a good red creeps up on you.  It swills and swells and surrounds the senses until you feel a bit queer.

The red is the drink of the mystery writer, the murder, the whocaresdunnet, the red is as thick and as dark as the clouds of confusion in a novel or the fog that lends atmosphere (literally) to a story.

Why would you drink red if you were writing?

Well, it mellows things, flattens them out.  Ideal if, in your first draft, you had ‘FUCK ME, THE FANGS, THE FANGS!” as the opening line and then a separate paragraph with 227 exclamation marks.

Red wine builds up to stuff (see also, fortified wine).  It’s the wine people drink three to four decisions ahead of taking a decision, a light procrastinating wine, if you will, and so ideal for mysteries.  “I’ll check out that death threat tomorrow, but first, a glass of this lovely looking wine left on my doorstep!”

It’s also the perfect winter drink (you can stick Horlicks up your arse and, in the case of a recent Horlicks-botherer, actually can).  You’re by the fire, there may be a blanket, there’s certainly an armchair. You have three uninterrupted hours ahead of you, you are of an age when you pick up a paperback rather than a smartphone, what better than a bottle of something cheeky to the point of impertinence to enhance the experience.

The other genre associated with red wine is a niche one; the military biography.  There are three obvious connotations.  The first is blood, soaking into either sand, turf, water or snow depending on your theatre.  The second is the colour of a military man’s coat, either intentionally during the Nepolionic wars where a red jacket was just the thing, or quite unintentionally in any other era when a red jacket meant that you, or somebody near you, had just encountered something sharp.  Finally, red wine is second only to the pineapple as being an essential element of any military anecdote.  ‘This bottle here, these were the damned Frenchies’, that sort of thing.

And that’s that.  There’s a book for every sort of reader and there’s a drink for every sort of writer, some writers indeed (Kinky Friedman, I’m looking at you!) enjoy several types of drink.  Laurie Lee wrote on wine and wrote brilliantly, but sometimes it’s interesting to consider that, if he had written on beer or fizz, he could have left a lasting legacy of military yarns or even romcom.

Of course, what he’s most famous for is cider.

Write on white

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We being with…white wine.

White wine suits poets.  It’s bucolic.  It’s also, these days (as Stewart Lee would say) bloody strong.  Back in the day, there’s a chance that Laurie Lee was drinking something delicious, refreshing, good with fish and not terribly alcoholic.  So, a couple of glasses with lunch and then crank out a few thousand words of gorgeous literature, then a nap.  Great.  The poets of today do not have it so easy.  White wine is literary rocket fuel, in that all the action happens very quickly and in a very short space of time.  First sip, feel inspiration tingle, middle third of glass, burst of creativity, bottom third of glass, decision time.  Second glass, your day’s work is over.  The only major literary decision you are going to make for the rest of the day is trying to get the password on your Majestic account right to order another crate of the stuff.

The thing about white wine is this, it’s an event in a glass.  It should be served chilled, cold enough to disguise the fact that you are serving your guests the £3.99 special with notes of grass and petrol.  This should chill the glass, resulting in that race to the bottom before it gets warm that only The Queen is immune to (special gloves, liver like a…well, liver like a monarch rather than a weak and feeble woman).  Glasses of white wine look especially good when placed next to manual typewriters.  The portions are these:

A bottle of white wine in the afternoon – poets

A carafe of white wine – novelists

A glass of white wine – readers and people who think that they have something fresh to write about vampires.

Alcohol, of course, is famous for allowing one to overcome one’s inhibitions.  To this extent, the reveal of the true self, one wonders if Dr Jekyll’s formula was actually: gin.  But if employed by the author, white wine, very much the perky, sharp, slightly noisome friend/fiend in the bottle, can be beneficial.

It’s summer.  Bees drone, lawnmowers drone, drones, well, buzz, which is odd, because bees also buzz, and some bees are drones, but few if any bees carry cameras.

OK, I’ve had a glass of wine.  That’s the rule.  Drink while you write.  I don’t make the rules, apart from this one.

Oh, and fank thuck for spelllcheck.

Right.  It’s summer, cows moo, bees drone and the poet or novelist is in his or her shed.  It’s too hot to write, it’s too hot to think.  Cotton is sticking to buttock in a way that is more uncomfortable than alluring.  Then.  Sandwiches and a glass of white wine.

The inspiration flows.  The verse is conjured, the stanzas flow.  The plot thickens as the characters develop, maybe one of the characters has a glass of wine and a ham sandwich.  I would read that book.

Cold white wine is a shock to the system, it’s invigorating.  It opens up a world of wonder and excitement and here’s why authors really, really love it, it leaves us wanting more.

Associated with: spy novel, novels about the Napoleonic war, poetry about hedges, anything to do with sport (grass notes), anything to do with the sea (great with fish), any author who writes 250 words a day.  Literary lunches.  Literary launches.

White wine is very much a summer drink, while glorious halcyon days may be bad for creativity, who needs inspiration when you have condensation beading on the outside of the glass?  After a second glass it’s time to put away the typewriter, and Google the reviews of your last book, after a third, the real work of the afternoon, going on Amazon under an assumed name and reviewing/shitting all over the latest offering from that wanker who called your last effort ‘disappointing’.

Finally, white wine is the only drink on the planet whose character is wholly unchanged by being served in a plastic receptacle.  At a literary festival?  Don’t know what to order?  Let me tell you what’s going to be delicious, refreshing and pleasingly cool in the hand in a sweaty marquee in a summer in the Shires.  Served from a box?  Oh, OK.

Shed Red 2012

The Shed Red 2011 is nearly ready for drinking, that is, nearly ready for drinking by other people after I give bottles as Christmas presents, once the recipient has signed a legally binding disclaimer, naturally.  Indeed, I have already given one bottle away to a relative who was interested in trying home wine making or, to give it its scientific term; ‘getting drunk on the cheap during a recession’.  Early reports are that Shed Red is better drunk after leaving it to breath for a couple of days.  This, I am given to understand, gives the chemical smell and aftertaste time to dissipate.  This may well be the first wine that should not be decanted near varnished surfaces.

So while Shed Red 2011 will shortly only be a memory, and for those whose higher brain functions it inhibits, maybe not even that, excitement is building about Shed Red 2013 – okay rosé!

This was a golden summer, but only in terms of the medal haul of Team GB.  Weatherwise it wasn’t great, in fact the Met Office put out a press release officially declaring it the most ‘bloody miserable’ summer since records began, and that includes the one with the Ark.

The wet summer has given us a truly golden autumn.  The trees have been spectacular this year, leaves shimmering gold and amber and fiery red.  They are, as a result of the (surprise) wind and rain, mostly on their way to being attractive mulch now, but for a few days the colours were glorious.

The wet weather may have produced attractive foliage, but it’s been hard on the crops, my vine in particular.  One of the most important decisions in any grape grower’s life is when to prune the leaves from the vine, allowing the sunlight to shine directly on the crop.  The problem is that the leaves also shelter the grapes from being battered by the rain.  This year, the decision was simple, there was no sunshine and there was plenty of rain.  In addition to a lack of sunshine, I am now able to say with certainty that grape guzzling critters are quite happy to brave the elements while the cats that kept the squirrels at bay last year were, presumably, at home curled up on top of a radiator, occasionally shitting in their owner’s shoe to relieve the monotony or whatever the hell it is that cats do.

The result is that the yield, as they say, is down.  This has affected not just my harvest, but the good people at Nyetimber, who are reported not to have even bothered harvesting this year.

Yea, well, Nyetimber may have bottled it (or not), but it takes more than a vastly reduced yield and the possibility that the under-developed grapes may result in a drink that requires its own entry on the periodic table (SRx) to put team Shed Red off getting out the demijohns, the sugar and the fining powder and other chemical additives that make the stuff drinkable and, importantly, makes drinking it ‘quite an experience’ rather than ‘death by misadventure’.

I have actually tried some of the 2012 and it is an improvement on the 2011, a darker colour (although still a rose rather than a true red, it is a much darker blush, think ‘social mortification resulting in having to make a large donation to a badger sanctuary’ rather than ‘used wrong soup spoon at dinner’ levels of embarrassment) and a more complex taste, there is almost no way in which this could be mistaken, or used for, paint thinner.

Moreover, this is very much a limited edition.  Last year there was about forty bottles of the stuff, this year, a mere eleven or, as my winemaker explained the other night ‘ten’, not that I begrudge him a bottle although I hope that he sipped it and savoured it rather than bolting it with the determination of Frankenstein attempting to destroy his own creation.

Odd though that a year which gave the smaller crop of poor grapes has produced a superior wine.  One thing is for sure, when drinking a 2012 vintage, people will be thinking about gold.  A shame Nyetimber passed on that.

Good cure for a hangover

A tea urn.  Note simplicity and practicality of design, centered around holding gallons of the stuff, and a simple spigot for rapid dispensing to thirsty masses.

Those bastards at Nottage Hill have successfully weaponised wine, that’s the only explanation for the results arising from drinking the filthy stuff that came out of the carton I bought in good faith from the grocers.  It also led to the establishment of a new phrase in the household: ‘two litres of red, all day in bed’ although in truth I don’t think that I’ll ever need to use this handy mnemonic because the phrase ‘I am never drinking wine from a carton ever again’ is much easier to remember.

In truth, the packaging should have been warning enough in itself.  I am not a wine snob, far from it, but even I know that no luxury product should come in a carton.  And, whatever the French would have you think, wine is a luxury product, or at least it should be.  Milk and fruit juice come in cartons, decent wine does not.  If necessary, apply this simple test: what product looks at home, in a carton, on the breakfast table.

In principle, wine in a carton is an excellent idea.  It’s the reality that’s a let down. 

To get a bottle of wine open, traditionally one needs a corkscrew and a flourish, this results in a pleasing pop as a prelude to a cheery glunking.  Of course, the advent of the twist cap has somewhat reduced this pleasure but what has been lost in terms of the erosion of heritage has been made up for in the efficiency with which plonk can now be opened and decanted.  With the carton, there is theatre involved in the opening of the packaging as one tries to winkle the spigot free of the container, an operation at the conclusion of which, take it from me, you will have earned your drink.

Wine comes in bottles. 

Tea can come in urns.

The industrialisation of tea by making it in an urn was perfected by the Women’s Institute of course, but the practice of making a proper cup of tea available in huge quantities has spread far and wide, a genuine force for good.

If you read the papers, you might be fooled into thinking that there are many varieties of tea.  Indeed the supermarket shelves are filled with boxes of ‘Earl Grey’ or ‘Assam’.  This is not tea.  When you ask for a cup of tea you expect to be given English Breakfast tea with milk in it and, if you are fancy, the option of not having sugar.  The great Kyril Bonfiglioll immortalised tea made with Carnation Milk as being a delightful shade of orange and this is indeed makes an already wonderful beverage even more appitising, orange being an acceptable shade of tea in exactly the same way that it is an unacceptable shade of skin, unless you’re an Oompa Loompa.

Urn tea is one of the cornerstones of this nation, from the jumble sale in the village hall to the cricket pavilion to the ready room of a fighter squadron, but variants have their place.  For instance builder’s tea, so called because it is practically a construction material in itself, being so strong and heavily sugared that, if made properly, one can stand a spoon up in it.  Such tea can be found in cafes but is best enjoyed in its native environment, on building sites or anywhere that cement is mixed with purpose.

Of course, if one were seeking to market builder’s tea one would be better off describing it as ‘artisan tea’ and playing up the health aspects of it, or at least concealing just how much sugar goes into the average cup by, for instance, simply stating that it provides 6000% of your recommended daily allowance.

There are those people, normally the sort of people that have lace at the end of their sleeves, lavender sachets in their knicker draws (or indeed have knicker draws) and exist mostly in etchings and ITV period dramas who will take a cup (cup?! I ask you, tea comes in a mug, always has, always will, always should) of Dajeeling and pronounce it ‘refreshing’.  These people are not to be trusted with a hod.  Or indeed a kettle.  Or the vote.

From vine to wine, it's all fine

This has been, in every way, a ripe year for British fruit. The harvest has been bountiful and the fruit itself, taking an invented figure, at least 20% plumper and juicier than average. On the Imperial measure, that's at least one third of a smiling child more than normal and on the Summerisle scale, it means that demand for virgin sacrifices is down one on previous years.

The branches have hung heavy with fruit and the hedgerows were busy with birds at first flitting from branch to branch, then lunging from branch to branch before finally crashing heavily from branch to branch as their now almost spherical forms provided inspiration for any passing app maker. While in the supermarket the bumper harvest brought about by unseasonable, unreasonable but very welcome warm Autumn weather went unnoticed because while more of a product should mean it gets cheaper, rocketing diesel prices meant that transporting the stuff from farm to shop was getting more expensive, it was very noticeable in the fields, in those little roadside stalls you get when you travel the back roads, in the increase in demand for sugar, glass jars and other jam making accessories (jam making kitchens, the crystal meth labs of the English middle classes), and in back gardens.

Especially mine. This was the year that Jeremy, my vine, came good.

Not to say that in previous years he's not tried, it's just that this year he's had help.

Previously, Jeremy has fruited, with tiny buds slowly turning into grapes and those green grapes turning a luscious deep, dark purple (causing me to look again at Jeremy's tag and try to recollect if I had intended to buy a white-wine, sorry, a green grape vine, and had accidentally grabbed the wrong stalk in the garden centre. Of course it may have been that three or four years ago I was going through a red wine phase, which would certainly explain both my choice and my inability to either recollect my intention or to grab the right vine if green grapes had been my intention), I looked on them with pride, turned my back, heard a grey whoosh and turned back to see no grapes and a grape-laden squirrel shooting up a tree, just out of twatting-with-a-spade range.

This year, however, a more relaxed attitude to regimenting the garden has led to the borders growing in a 'wild garden' fashion. The idea was to encourage wildlife such as butterflies and bees, while freeing up valuable drinking time by avoiding excess pruning or trimming. Have no fear though, my lawn has been kept in pristine condition and could, at any time, have been pressed into service as a surface to play croquet, bowls, cricket, polo or, after one particularly close pass with the mower, snooker, on. The move towards wild gardening has led to the arrival of sentinel cats who, apparently, like nothing better than to curl up in the long grass and snooze away the afternoon, watched resentfully by squirrels who are now too scared to enter the garden. Hence the vine has been unmolested and hence there has been a bountiful harvest of grapes.

The cats are tolerated not just because they are even better squirrel deterrent than me running round the garden in my pants swinging a shovel round my head and screaming my dread squirrel-slaying war cry of 'Die Tufty Dieeeeeeeeeeee!' but because they don't crap in the garden. I have nothing against cats in and of themselves, after all, spinsters need love too, but I do have an objection to animals that crap in my garden. Obviously, these cats are fastidious and have decided that nothing puts a cramp in your nap when you are entirely covered in fur quite like poo. This is plainly a view shared by the fox that also took up residence for a short spell this summer, and who could be seen snoozing in the sunshine, moving only when the setting sun threw a long shadow across the lawn and he was required to pick himself up, wander a few yards into the sunshine, and drop down again. I thought for years that foxes drew their energy from bin raids and leftover chicken tikka masala, but apparently they are solar powered. So an uneasy peace reigned in my back garden in the summer of 2011, with the fox, the cats and myself all studiously ignoring one another's existence. I've no idea if the truce will be last and fear some sort of fur, fangs and faeces version of a Tombstone showdown moment next time round.

For this year though, all was calm, the only sounds the uncorking of lunch, the occasional sizzle of a sausage on the barbecue and the sound of my tomato plants, and Jeremy, growing. If ever there was a year for growing tomatoes, this was it. It's amazing that water plus sunshine can equal fruit, and free fruit at that. The things grew even taller than I am, and by August I had had to construct a Heath-Robinsonesque framework of bamboo canes held together with gardening twine to support the vertical and horizontal growths. By the time the crop was done I think there was more bamboo than tomato plant but the result was pleasing not only in the sense of getting free food, but of course the blokish sensation of having built something. The tomatoes tasted great, although the choice to go with two varieties, one that is traditional red when ripe and one that is yellow, caused some early confusion in trying to determine when a yellow tomato is ripe - answer: when it's very yellow.

Getting back to vines though, lets be clear, a vine has but two purposes; shade and booze. In sunny countries, like England in 2011, they are just the job for curling around your pergola or hastily lashed together framework of bamboo canes in order to provide welcome shade. Shade under which one can, if one wishes, set up a table and some chairs, and perhaps serve some cheese, with the wine of your choice. That's breakfast sorted, now all that remains is to call into work with a croaky voice, kick back and make the most of the day. Jeremy is not quite up to this yet, he was curled around my shed instead, but he is up to making wine! With a little help.

I have a friend who makes wine. Well, let me clarify, I have a friend who makes alcohol and alcohol products. To him, nature is something to be washed, peeled, sliced and then put into a bucket with a pound of sugar and some yeast, left in a shed for a couple of weeks, strained, matured in a bottle for as long as his patience can bear, and then drunk. He has made alcoholic drinks out of cherries, pears, rhubarb and, rumour has it, on one occasion a fox that was not quite quick enough after crapping on his vegetable patch. But never grapes. His vine has, mysteriously, always failed to produce grapes, even this summer.

So, I had a harvest of grapes but no knowledge of how to make wine, and he has all the gear and a good idea, but no grapes. So it was that we entered into an agreement, I would harvest and supply the grapes, he'd do all the hard work and we'd split the result half and half.


The process of wine making only fuelled the expectation of the result. I delivered the grapes to my winemaker and left him to undertake the initial stages. This resulted, a couple of weeks later, in a large bucket of grape juice. We then spent an evening straining the stuff into another bucket, while the dregs were retained. My wine buddy had a plan for those. The resulting strained wine juice was added to another bucket, sugar and yeast was added, a mysterious instrument called a hydrometer was used, more sugar was added, the lid was put on the bucket and the whole thing was returned to the shed.


Sheds have featured largely. Jeremy put on a growth spurts this summer and wrapped himself around my shed, while the fruit has turned to wine in a shed. With this in mind, various names for the wine were considered and rejected ('Vin diesel', 'Van Bloody Ordinary', Vin-mto', 'Grim grape') before we settled on the inevitable 'Shed red'. I think that the close involvement of sheds at every stage has leant a certain something to the wine itself, as it fermented away I was imagining that it would have notes of compost, porn and creosote.

Of course, as with all this home made stuff, potency can be a problem. I tried a glass of his rhubarb wine on holiday and lost the power of speech after half a glass, the use of common sense after the rest of the glass and the use of my ability to climb stairs after a second glass. Good stuff. I think.

Come decanting day, we had moved out of the bucket stage, which was something of a relief. While the reality of actually making something usually demystifies the product, and while the sieving, pouring and standing well back as the yeast and sugar got it on was tremendous fun, there is only so much romance to be had from a plastic bucket. But glass demijohns and tubes - this was much more like it.


The resulting wine is actually a rose, a beautiful pink, like the blush of a convent school girl just having her first inappropriate thought about the captain of the netball team. This was rather unexpected considering how dark the grapes were and one wonders exactly how dark the grapes are that produce those really deep red wines, I suspect most of them are beyond the visible spectrum.

I was told by my winemaker that the result tasted like a Beaujolais nouveaux. This would make perfect sense, as that is a wine synonymous with being drunk practically before the corks are hammered into the bottles. The idea for shed red, like all home made wine, is that you make it, bottle it and then forget about it for at least a year.

However, given all the excitement about this vintage, we had to try it. I would say that the result is...interesting. It certainly packs a punch and resembles nothing so much as a light and fruity lunchtime wine crossed with battery acid and the sort of spirit that one buys at a car boot sale to clear your car windscreen of frost, or possibly a home made cure for removing warts, stubborn stains and all traces of life in any awkward family member. Having said that, we finished the bottle.

I believe the correct term for the resulting wine is 'young'. Like all wines it should be allowed to mature and I have to say that putting it away has already improved it tremendously, in that I don't have to drink the stuff. At present, it's enough to look at it, sitting there gathering potency, and feel a warm glow of achievement and not just a little frisson of anxiety about what the stuff is going to taste like in a years time.

The skins and stalks, by the way, were not wasted. Rather, this was used to make grappa. Grappa is, as anyone who has ever shuddered their way to a pulled muscle after sipping the stuff will know, notoriously vile. If it tastes goodj, you're not doing it right. It's supposed to be made of the leftovers when you have made wine and it is supposed to be rough as a mountain goat's arse in Lithuania's goat shagging season. Thus, the bar had not been set high, or had been, depending on your point of view. When the Shed Red was bottled the grappa was still in the bucket stage of the process, so we all trooped out to the shed for a sip. Itw was sublime. I think that served chilled, ideally so chilled that you don't actually taste it, it would actually be excellent.

Green and pleasant land

The sunny Spring and wet Summer may have played merry hell with the cricket schedule (although given the years of training that the ‘Test Match Special’ team have had in talking about just about anything other than cricket, they were perfectly placed to bring the same world-class professionalism to bear on the ground staff rushing on and off with the covers that they do with the batting and bowling and to make it just, if not more, exciting), but it’s turned the garden into a den of plump lusciousness. My lawn has never looked so lush, nor the plants so…much like an out-of-control hedgerow.

While Jeremy, my vine, is looking promising, the tomato plants (grown from grafts, which is the plant equivalent of adopting a child once they are old enough top drive and buy you a pint, so getting around all that tedious business of raising them) are positively blooming. They are now taller than me, leading to my erecting a Heath Robinsonesque framework of bamboo and garden twine, anchoring the plants and keeping them upright. This is tricky, as they are loaded with plump tomatoes.

I put the growth down to their being grafts, regular watering, regular feeding and the blood of the odd stray cat.

I have a variety of plants, one grows traditional plump red toms, the other cherry tomatoes and yet another yellow tomatoes – and just out of interest how the hell know when they are ripe?

Ripening visibly are the grapes on Jeremy. They are turning from green to black and this year there’s a better than even chance that I will actually be able to harvest them. Previously, they have ripened and provided a feast for the local squirrels (or, as the Daily Mail would describe them, immigrants) but this year the cat population appears to have reached the tipping point where they have kept the grape guzzling critters at bay.

So this could be the year for wine. At last. This could be the year where the romance of wine making – throwing a load of fruit and chemicals into a plastic bucket, keeping it warm and hoping to Christ that it doesn’t explode or rot or result in the neighbours dobbing you in as brewing up a chemical attack – could result in something drinkable or at least the sort of thing that will remove stubborn stains.

What’s required, of course, is a decent name. Vin something and, in expectation of the taste, the front runner is Vin Diesel. I rather like Vin Shed also, or is that Vin Petit Chatau, or plain old Vin Shitoh! That said, why bother with any poncy French merde at all – I rather like ‘shedwine’, it hints of the exotic, a taste of porn and creosote.

The search for a decent picnic basket

The search for a decent picnic basket, no, I'll correct that, the search for just the right picnic basket is something that has been occupying me for some months now. There is much more to it than simply Googling 'picnic basket' and filtering out the pictures of Yogi Bear. I'm just glad that the term has not yet been adopted by the deviant community to define some repulsive sexual practice that leaves you with wicker marks on your arse.

What I'm looking for is something traditional, with six plates, six bowls, six side plates and six cups and saucers, cutlery, seasoning containers and plenty of space for tubs of food and so on. I am prepared to concede that a separate basket will be required for beverages, or possibly two extra baskets, one for red, one for white. It does not seem that tall an ask.

I also realise that it would probably be beneficial if it came on little wheels and possibly had a small motor to power it.

But there seems to be a dearth of decent picnic baskets, especially ones that come with a separate linen compartment. Possibly this is a gap in the market that I can plug with some sort of cottage industry, bespoke picnic baskets. Get the baskets of various sizes woven in China, or even better somewhere where there are lots of neurotics who look on basket weaving as therapy, like the Home Counties, then outfit to the customers requirement.

Of course, the thing to do would be to run a bespoke service. This would mean that you would not give the customer what they asked for, but what they really needed. Thus somebody who thought that they wanted a four piece traditional set up would, after a brief consultation, be presented with a basket that contains a wine rack, a cork screw, compartments for glasses and a small space for bar snacks. Who could ask for more?

I still think that the ultimate picnic basket could be mode by adapting one of those wicker coffins that they use for green burials (don't they, well, leak?). You've got space there for a dinner service, lamps, a small stove, a larder and a wine cellar, and best of all it's got handles all the way round so the six of you it takes to carry the bloody thing can all get a good grip.

This Government hates booze

The British summer has continued to thrill and frustrate at every turn. Thrill because anyone loving statistics will practically get a boner every time the weather forecast comes on and the forecaster explains that this is the dullest summer since 1882, or that we haven’t had a rain of frogs like this in Newton Abbot since records began. Frustrate because it would be pleasant to see the sun on a weekend occasionally.

Lack of rain has also had a profound effect upon my vine. Installed last year, I had great expectations of Jeremy, and he hasn’t disappointed. Earlier this ‘summer’ there were little bud things that I was assured would turn into grapes. This, I thought, was great! I would take the grapes, make my own wine and finally become self-sufficient in booze!

Thanks in part to the weather, the Gallo family don’t have to shut up shop just yet. I believe that vines, however hardy, really want to grow on the sun kissed slope of some Mediterranean country somewhere, with easy access to hours of sunshine and cheap labour during harvesting time as gang-masters beat the Eastern European pickers and gap-year students looking for an authentic travelling experience senseless if they don’t pick round the clock.

My vine does have grapes, yes. They appear to be perfectly formed, yes, even though I had a nasty moment when I saw them turning a dark colour and thought I had vine-rot or something (I’d forgotten I’d bought a red grape variety vine) but as to the size? I actually think I’m the first man to successfully grow raisins.

I have, as a result, scaled back my expectations accordingly. Gone are the plans for a 400 gallon stainless steel tank to hold the end product, back in come the glass demijohns as the fermenting vessel of choice. I’m also trying to scrounge those little wine bottles that they give you on airplanes. On the plus side, my label-printing costs will be much less than expected.

All this makes me feel like an outlaw. I’m not sure what this Government hopes to achieve by clamping down on the more sensible aspects of enjoying alcohol. For an administration that appears to chase popularity the same way a fat kid chases an ice-cream van, it’s odd to make having a quiet pint in your local boozah more expensive and less convenient while at the same time letting giant supermarket chains sell blue alcohol to youths who drink it on street corners. Maybe the Government suspects that sedition, as well as hops, ferments in the taverns of England.

Drinkers today are getting that same feeling that smokers got twenty years ago, with ‘no drinking’ notices springing up about the place. In a couple of decades, the only place you’ll be able to drink is in your own home and the only stuff you’ll be able to afford to drink is stuff you’ve brewed yourself.

English men will love this. It will turn home brewing from a smelly pastime into a necessity and will mean that they never have to take their wives anywhere ever again. It will also mean that every home with space will have two sheds, one for keeping garden tools, compost and porn in, the other to be converted into a small brewery tap.

Along with home brewing, the home pub snacks industry will develop. God alone knows how they make pork scratching, but I suspect all you need is a pig and a giant pencil sharpener, how hard can it be?

Men love making stuff. Recently, there’s been no point in making stuff because men used to make things like shelves and, er, other stuff. These days the demands of domesticity are a little more elaborate and it’s harder to knock up a DVD player in your shed than it looks, especially when you can buy one from China for twenty quid. If the Government thinks it will drive men to virtue by depriving them of their pubs and brewery beer, they are sadly mistaken. Rather, men will gather in their sheds, sup their home-brew and talk dissent. Until summoned to the house by their wife for their dinner.

Plenty of nose

In a recent presentation (powerpoint, natch) to the French President, the impact of global warming was illustrated, not with images of stricken Banglideshi children flooded out of their Nike factories, but by the movement of the optimum weather for growing champagne grapes away from France and over to SE England.

Sacre Blu! Say the French.

Formidable, say I. I was especially tickled because I learned of this the week after planning a vine in my very own back garden.

Jeremy is now firmly embedded and, I hope, thriving. Indeed my next mission is to source some poles and stuff for him to climb along.

In the meantime, I am occupying myself by daydreaming about bottling my first run of Château Macnabbs and doodling logos for my ‘vineyard’. So far the leading designs are a stylised bunch of grapes or a Ford Transit bearing the words ‘Van Ordinaire’.

Something tells me that the combination of clay soil, together with contamination from cat pee and creosote from the nearby shed, will ensure my vintage will be rather ‘vin de table’ but, as long as none is actually spilled on the varnish of the table in question, I trust we’ll be okay.

Don’t know if I’ll actually get a crop this year but this has not stopped me from starting to look at wine making kits and preparing to say at parties that ‘I’m into wine production, in a small way’. Bloody small in fact. Indeed, I’ve promise a few friends a bottle of the Château Macnabbs ’08 and even then I think I’m pushing my luck although, thinking about it, maybe the answer is to go with those miniature bottles you get on aeroplanes.

HUmmmn, wonder if I can get a hop plant from somewhere? If I put my mind to it, I might become self-sufficient in booze!