Easter Sunday

Easter eggs for breakfast. Chocolate bars for later.

Kofta kebabs and couscous for Easter tea followed by baklava that I got for Christmas.

We had red wine with the meal. I bought it on Wednesday. I put the bottle in my bag in the trolley.

‘Hello.’

I turned to see an older man standing behind me. ‘Hello?’

He didn’t say anything for ages.

Did I know him? Where from?

‘I’m writing a book—‘

Is he in my writing group?

‘—on wine. I’m always interested to know what wines people buy.’

Turns out he was a lecturer at the Cambridge universities, and had been for fifty years. Probably more of an oenologist than a wine buff, then.

I’d got a Pinot Noir. I pointed it out to him on the shelf. He said it would be lighter than the Cabernet Sauvignon next to it. I’d gleaned that from the description on the label. I didn’t say that.

I was in a hurry because I’d left it later than usual to do the shopping, and my writing group was meeting that evening.

He talked for ages about wine. He said Don Perignon didn’t invent champagne, as many people think, but it’s likely he was involved in its development. He said the best wine is the wine that you like. He said some people prefer the cheaper wines given a blind taste test. He said that Chardonnay is best unoaked. He said a lot of other things while time ticked and tocked.

He said he normally charges £30/hour for the things he’d told me.

The one thing I expected him to do was ask why I’d chosen that particular bottle of wine. But he didn’t.So I’ll tell you instead.

I’d gone for red because it doesn’t need chilling. I’d gone for Pinot Noir because the description sounded nice. But mostly I picked it because it was labelled vegan.

While he was telling me that there was a lot of guff spoken about wine, like the champagne thing and the various theories as to how champagne came about, I couldn’t help but think of that programme that was on the telly a while ago where Oz Clarke tried to convince James May that wine tastes more than just ‘winy’, which is, in fact, exactly how it tastes to me.

Anyway, Happy Easter!