Jason Yapp

1. Can you tell us what your first wine revelation was? That life always looks rosier with a decent glass of wine at hand and the promise of more in the bottle. 2. You’re an infamous observer of ‘Dry January’. What wine do you miss most in abstinence? A crisp, clean, zesty, aromatic, refreshing, slightly tropical, all round lip-smacking New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from, say, Seresin Estate, Churton, Pask or Jackson Estate. And now you’ve got me thinking about it I really do miss it. Grrrr! 3. Your father Cyril was a celebrated oenophile. Did he leave you a marvellous cellar? No, the rotter didn’t, he drank it all! He judged his departure almost to perfection, leaving only a handful of bottles for his adoring only child.

I was struck recently as I perused the modest collection of bottles I pretentiously call my ‘home cellar’ (the really good stuff has to be kept out reach, I’m afraid) by the dreadful uniformity of its contents. There was certainly enough variety in terms of style, but everything was held within the globally invariant, ubiquitous, standard 75 cl bottle. Don’t get me wrong I think 75 cl is a wonderful – arguably ideal – size, but variety is the spice of life and I was lacking it! Why? Was this because we now live in an increasingly choice-less society or a sad reflection of my ‘half a couple with kids’ status? There are lots of reasons for straying from the standard measure and plenty of variations.

With last year's bicentennial of the battle of Waterloo, a lot of people have been banging on about Napoleon Bonaparte being a tactical genius who never lost a battle to a weaker force. Which is all very well – but hardly anyone touches upon the more interesting topic of what he liked to drink. Napoleon’s first commission, at the ripe old age of 16, was as a 2nd Lieutenant in the La Frère Artillery regiment based in Valance-sur-Rhône. He is reputed to have acquired a penchant for the local sparkling wine of Saint-Péray which is entirely plausible but sadly not well-documented.

Wine is one of life’s great joys – so why, asks Jason Yapp, do major retailers do such a dismal job of flogging it? I have several items to declare: bags of prejudice, a heap of self-interest, a smidgen of latent snobbery and chips on both shoulders. But even accounting for all of the above it can’t just be me who finds buying wine in a supermarket a joyless, soulless and utterly dispiriting experience. Wine is one of nature’s most precious gifts, and its acquisition should be a joy, not an ordeal. Most of the major multiples employ a smattering of Masters of Wine (of whom there are only 288 in existence), so there is no shortage of in-house product knowledge, but sadly this is seldom evident at the point of sale.