Dry January

Good luck to you if you felt compelled not to drink alcohol throughout January - you almost got there.

I have felt no such compulsion. I  simply do not drink too much alcohol and I never intend to do so. I do not take too much notice of government recommendations of what to eat and drink and how much. I know in my own mind that I rarely over indulge and that my drinking is not damaging my health.

The same can be said for my wife. It is clear that certain medical academicians are trying to get the population not to drink alcohol at all. They are constantly bringing the recommendations for how many units we should drink per week down. They are now getting round to suggesting that drinking more than 14 units a week makes you an abuser of alcohol. Such absolutism is tosh. Anyone who is an alcoholic or who has liver disease should not be drinking at all. If I drink 15 units a week it neither makes me an alcoholic nor an abuser of alcohol. I shall decide for myself based on my own health not on the idea of someone who has not even met me.

I drink wine with food and if I am deprived of a few glasses of Bordeaux or Burgundy, or any other good wine, then the quality of my life goes down. The conviviality of sharing a glass or two of wine with my wife and my friends helps to make life worth living for me. Health-puritan bores do not bother me.

2001 Baron d'Aupenac Saint-Chinian Cave de Roquebrun Red

On  Christmas day it was just my wife and me. We decided to cook a rib of beef with a port based sauce and it was delicious. I selected my last bottle of 2001 Baron d'Aupenac Saint-Chinian from the Languedoc to go with it. We ate delicious food and drank tremendous wine - just us two. The joys of a family reunion had to wait for a couple of days.

The Cave de Roquebrun produces some of my favourite red wines. The Baron d'Aupenac is their top red wine and it compares favourably with the best red wines from France. A quick glance at the back label suggested that the wine could be kept for just 10 years but this wine was going strong after 16. There was a lovely flavour of rich ripe red fruits with a hint of oak.The wine was well integrated with soft tannin. It had a full body and was still concentrated and complex and lingered for a very long time on the palate. It had its own unique flavour and it had all the hallmarks of a great wine but at a reasonable price.

The wine was perfect for an intimate Christmas with rib of beef and good English and French cheeses.

If you are in the St Chinian area of southern France then do not hesitate to pay the Cave de Roquebrun a visit. All of their wines are of the highest quality and they are tremendous value for money.  And, they all deserve to be  consumed with the best of food.