The perfect wines for a post-Christmas restock

Cooee, we’re back! Come on, wine lovers, it’s time to get cracking! Whether you’re clinging desperately to the water wagon like me or enjoying a liquor-fuelled January like Mrs Ray (she didn’t feel very well this morning, bless her), we have work to do refilling those bare wine racks that were plundered during the festivities.

I was felled by dread Covid over Christmas but tried to lend a wan, sickly hand to the assembled lushes as they rampaged through an impressive number of bottles and magnums and goodness knows how many spirits, but I only held them back.

I retired to my sick bed early with a brace of hot toddies as the party carried on late into the night and by morning the cobwebbed cupboard under the stairs (aka the Cellar) was all but empty. Even the Crème de Menthe and the Tuaca (Brightonians will know what I mean) had disappeared.