Wine Club

Our squabbles at home about Christmas are as traditional for us as carol-singing, roast turkey and stockings are for others. Our current standoff concerns the tree. Our boys think a plastic one is most environmentally friendly. Yes, they argue, ultimately it will go to landfill, but it’s reusable, will last for decades and doesn’t necessitate a real tree being felled. But, says Mrs Ray, creating plastic is a no-no, and think of the environmental costs of its delivery from China. Divide, conquer and I hate Christmas are my middle names, so I sat back, let them exhaust themselves quarrelling before landing my killer blow: what about no tree?

Oh dear, I’m so sorry, I got a bit carried away this week. Now that we’re no longer on the naughty step and Christmas isn’t being taken away from us after all, I’m in a cloud of euphoric indecision. We can finally meet actual, real, genuine people — hurrah! — but what the heck are we going to drink? We need to get stockpiling. The thing is, so tasty were the wines Mr Wheeler sent me and so over-excited was I that I just couldn’t decide which to pick, hence this bumper selection. Trust me, though, for each and every bottle is absolutely first-rate. The 2019 Greenhough ‘River Garden’ Sauvignon Blanc (1) from Nelson, New Zealand, is spot-on.

And it was all going so well. Actually, that’s a complete lie. Nothing’s going well for any of us. What I meant was that since I gave my poor liver such a merciless pounding during the last lockdown, I had decided not to drink a drop during Lockdown #2. Last time there was no apparent end in sight and it was impossible to foreswear the comfort of alcohol. This time, a finite 28 days seemed just about do-able. And it was and I was managing. Each day dragged like the blazes of course but the following morning, I’d scratch another line on the wall of my cell and press on with my empty life best I could. What undid me, though, were these fabulous clarets that Esme Johnstone, the canny fox behind FromVineyardsDirect, sent me to try.

Those naughty Yapps — Jason Yapp and step-bro Tom Ashworth — might be notorious leaders-astray of naive and innocent journalists, but they do know their wine. In particular they know their Rhône wine, and nobody deserves to be International Wine Challenge Rhône Specialist Merchant of the Year more than they do. In honour of said award, we’ve compiled an all-Rhône selection starting with the 2019 Yapp Blanc (1). A cheery blend of Grenache Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc, it’s made expressly for the Yapps by Les Vignerons Ardéchois, an exemplary coalition of wineries in Ruoms. It’s fresh, lively, crisp, clean and dry and as satisfying a house white as you will find. £7.50 down from £8.50.

These are dark days indeed and, with nobody seemingly in control, we’re pretty much back where we started, with lockdown beckoning once more with its bony finger. Well sod that. With a long, lonely winter ahead, I’m stocking up like fury. No, not with bog rolls and baked beans, you fool, with vino! I don’t think any vino suits this time of year better than fine Rioja, and the family--owned Compañia Vinicola del Norte de España (better known as CVNE) and its sister bodegas of Viña Real and Contino make some of the finest.

I don’t know about you but I’m still drinking like a bloody fish. I just can’t help myself. I mean there’s bugger all else to do now that I’ve finally watched all those 264 episodes of Frasier chronologically, put 1,191 meticulously chosen songs on my Spotify playlist (that’s a heartening 74 hours and 28 minutes’ worth) and grown, shaped and finally cut off my thick, grizzly face fungus. And since my don’t-eat-anything-white diet has worked so darn well (17lb lost since 1 August thank you very much) I can no longer obsess about that either. No, all I can think about is what I’m going to drink tonight.

The shifting sands of this blasted coronavirus — or, rather, the shifting sands of the government’s response to it — are driving us all mad. Having been lectured over the summer by Boris and co. on the importance of getting back to work, taking public transport, going to the local and eating out, we’re now told what selfish, virus-spreading twits we are and that we must be in bed by 10 p.m. or else. Folk at one end of our tiny island are told to do one thing and folk at the other end something completely different. It’s utterly bonkers and deeply confusing.

There are few finer places to be during these endlessly dark days than Bellamy’s in Bruton Place, London W1. And there are few finer folk to be there with than Chloe Smith, from strategic partnerships at The Spectator, and Laura Taylor, marketing director of Private Cellar. Gavin Rankin, le patron qui mange ici, is as witty, charming and attentive as ever and our glasses of fizz — the strikingly fine Ayala Brut Majeur Champagne — are on the house. I mean how good does it get? Perhaps there is a God after all. Ayala, founded in 1860, is one of the original Grand Marques and, part of the mighty Bollinger stable since 2005, is beloved by those in the know.

Good grief I miss our Spectator Winemaker Lunches! As you know, these extremely convivial and really rather bibulous events are held — or were held until the dread plague and pestilence fell upon us — in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street roughly every fortnight. A maximum of 14 readers join me and a winemaker of note for a fine cold lunch and the chance to sample some pretty dandy bottles and to hear all about how and where they were made. Your humble correspondent serves as wine waiter and as the vino flows — we rarely dip below a creditable one bottle per head — the conversation increases in volume and ranges far beyond the topic of fermented grape juice.

Nothing but good news this week. Hurrah! Firstly, I know you’ll be thrilled to hear that my don’t-eat-anything-white diet is working a treat. That’s no bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, cheese, cream, milk, sugar and so on. And, yes, clever clogs, cauliflower is allowed. I’ve also throttled back on the vino and managed to shed 7lb last week. Yes, yes, I know — most of that is water retention but, heck, it’s better than putting 7lb on. You’ll be even more thrilled, though, with this corking offer from Private Cellar of wines perfect for this glorious weather, plus an exclusive-to-Spectator-readers rosé and the jolliest, most genially priced bin-end red you’ll ever see. Let’s get cracking!

It was when the old lady passing the bottle bank lobbed me two quid and told me to get myself a nice cup of tea that I realised my lockdown face fungus had to go. I hadn’t shaved for months and as I battled with the empties that spewed noisily from my split carrier bag, I realised I was far from kempt. I wanted to explain to her that it wasn’t empty bottles of cider I was getting shot of but top class cru Beaujolais that I’d tasted on behalf of no less a journal than The Spectator, but a crowd was already beginning to gather and rather than humiliate myself further, I touched my forelock, muttered a humble ‘Thank you, lady’, and slunk home.

It dawned on me, with a chill, that I probably won’t live to drink the 2019 en primeur clarets that I’ve just forked out a substantial wodge for. It dawned on the considerably younger Mrs Ray, too, now busy earmarking which bottle to drink with whom as she throws aside her widow’s weeds and dances until dawn. It’s nice to know I’ll be missed. The consensus is that 2019 was a stellar vintage in Bordeaux. It’s expected to be a long-lived one too and poor saps of my own vintage (1960 — a dreadful year) will sadly miss the big-boned beauties in their pomp. All the more reason, then, to make the most of this fabulous offer of drinking clarets from Bordeaux specialists Corney & Barrow.

Lockdown is easing at last. Hoo-blooming-rah! Being the pessimistic optimist that I am, though, I know it’ll only be a day or two before the mother of all spikes appears to spoil our fun. But, heck, until such time, I’m going to celebrate long and hard. Come and join me and don’t forgetthe corkscrew! We’re off to Spain and Portugal for our first ever all-Iberian offer, courtesy of Honest Grapes, the founders of which — step forward Tom Harrow and Nathan Hill — know the peninsula as intimately as I now know daytime TV schedules and Deliveroo menus. The 2019 Quinta Das Maias Branco (1) is a Malvasia/Encruzado blend from a 130-year-old organic estate in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela in the Dão region of central north-west Portugal.

It is with a real sense of achievement that I report our council was obliged to send the recycling lorry down our street twice last week rather than the usual once. And don’t think for a moment it was there to pick up extra piles of paper or plastic. Nope, the lorry came simply to gather up the ridiculous number of wine bottles and, in some cases, magnums (well done no. 49!) that spilled out of our recycling boxes. In the 48 hours since the lorry’s previous visit, we collectively put out as many empties as one might expect to see after a particularly heavy week such as that which includes New Year’s Eve or England winning the world cup. I don’t remember ever feeling so proud. It quite brought a tear to my eye.

As regular followers of these offers will know, Jason Yapp and Tom Ashworth, co-proprietors of Yapp Bros (they are, in fact, step-bros), are a wicked, evil pair. Nothing delights them more than luring innocent and naïve drinks writers to their doom over endless glasses of their vino. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have succumbed to their wiles. Only the other day I had reason to recall one particular shirt-popping, liver-challenging lunch and its aftermath when I found a receipt for a hideously pricy bottle of champagne I seem to have bought in a place called Tranny Shack. Goodness knows where and what that is and with whom I shared said bottle. Bloody Jason! The trouble is that the wines the Yapps waft under my beak are always so darn tasty.