Jonathan Ray is The Spectator’s drinks editor.
From our UK edition
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,
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
We are delighted to publish the winning entries of our recent competition to find the best limericks in praise of English wine, in celebration of English Wine Week (20-28 June). The winner, none other than the Earl of Limerick himself, receives a deliciously effervescent prize comprised of three bottles of 2019 Chapel Down Sparkling Bacchus
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
What did you do during the great lockdown, Daddy? Well, son, I grew a beard, watched all 264 episodes of Frasier and became a raging inebriate. Well, I didn’t so much grow a beard deliberately as do nothing to stop it sprouting. And while I fully intend to see the whole Frasier canon chronologically, I
From our UK edition
English Wine Week, that annual celebration of our native wines and winemakers which runs from 20 to 28 June, is almost upon us. And with some 2,500 hectares under vine in England and Wales, spread across more than 700 vineyards, and with 160 or so commercial wineries producing some remarkable wines, our winemaking industry would
From our UK edition
I swear it’s only the vino that keeps me and Mrs Ray going. I mean, there’s precious little else to look forward to these days. I’ve given up on the impossible jigsaw, can only watch so much telly and if I never do another Zoom quiz it’ll be too soon. No, all I look forward
From our UK edition
I admit it freely: I’m a lockdown lush. There, I’ve said it. I simply can’t help but be undone by the siren call of the corkscrew which — during these dark times — comes earlier each day. And, judging by the titanic quantities of vino I see knocked back during my early evening Zoom calls
From our UK edition
I don’t know about you but lockdown is slightly losing its lustre Chez Ray. Joke over, thanks, let’s just get back to normality, whatever the new normality might be. In the meantime, though, as the drear days of social distancing and isolation turn to weeks and the weeks to months, it’s strange what delight one
From our UK edition
So herewith the Speccie’s 10,000th issue. Hurrah! And what finer reason needed to crack open some tip-top vino? My old man, Cyril Ray, from whom I learned my love of the grape, was assistant editor here in the days of Brian Inglis, Bernard Levin and Katharine Whitehorn, having started his career in 1936 as a
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Well, I never expected to spend my 60th birthday under lock and key, that’s for sure. I had a slightly troubled youth, it’s true, with several run-ins with the rozzers during my teens — culminating in a salutary scolding at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court in August 1976 — but after a (fairly) blameless middle age, I
From our UK edition
These are strange days indeed and Mrs Ray and I are positively hoovering through the vino. Thanks heavens, then, that independent wine merchants are still delivering. They are nothing less than the fourth emergency service and I give them a hearty hip, hip, hurrah. And enormous thanks, too, to Esme Johnstone of FromVineyardsDirect. So tasty
From our UK edition
The Spectator Wine Club is a club without sub. In fact it isn’t really a club at all, since no membership is required; no proposing, no seconding and no minimum order. Our nine merchant partners – Armit Wines, Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Honest Grapes, Mr Wheeler, Private Cellar, Swig, Tanners and Yapp Bros – represent
From our UK edition
Dear wine lover, These are strange times indeed and never has that first glass of wine in the evening been more welcome. I would be failing in my duty, therefore, if I didn’t write to remind you that all our partners in the Spectator Wine Club – namely Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Honest Grapes, Mr Wheeler,
From our UK edition
I fear Jason Yapp is slowing up a bit. The co-proprietor (with step-brother Tom Ashworth) of Yapp Bros is notorious for his love of long lunches so I felt more than a little short-changed when, last week, he dashed for the early train before the digestif trolley had even slipped its moorings and steamed into
From our UK edition
Spring wouldn’t be spring without our annual offer from Chateau Musar, that extraordinary Lebanese winery that is the epitome of triumph over adversity. As readers well know, Auberon Waugh and Simon Hoggart — my late, great predecessors as Custodian of the Corkscrew for The Spectator — were huge fans of Chateau Musar and I, too,
From our UK edition
This offer is now out of stock but please do call Private Cellar (01353 721 999) for other available items and recommendations. Our Spectator Winemaker Lunches are famously entertaining. Held roughly every fortnight in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street, they are catered by our old friends Forman & Field and are hosted by
From our UK edition
So that’s January done and dusted. Phew! I don’t know about you, but the wretched water wagon — to which I clung by my fingernails as always – is but a grim memory and I’m raring to go.jonath Happily, my abstinence proved to Mrs Ray that I’m not a complete dipso; my liver had a
