Roger Scruton’s philosophy of wine

The philosopher Roger Scruton died in January 2020 just a few weeks shy of his 76th birthday. He left behind a large circle of admirers and a correspondingly large shelf of books in a variety of genres – novels, opera libretti, volumes of occasional journalism, cultural and architectural criticism, and various philosophical works, popular as well as technical. He wrote and wrote about music, hunting to hounds and politics. He also wrote about the subject that brings us together: wine.

Roger was a gifted teacher, always on the lookout for opportunities to educate the ignorant, enlighten the benighted and expand the horizons of those cramped by bigotry and parti pris. His missionary work extended to the pages of the New Statesman, in whose pages his wine columns appeared. That magazine later repaid his patronage very poorly, but that is a subject for another day and, besides, it was after he compiled a selection of his columns in a book with the splendid title I Drink Therefore I Am (2010).