Wine Club

Order today. We got away with it! I wasn’t actually there, of course (and if I was, I didn’t realise) but I can report that our inaugural Spectator Wine Club BYOB/Wine Time Friday lunch passed off without a hitch. There was no excessive boozing, no fighting, no vomiting, no karaoke and definitely no poor treatment

Order today. I’ve been banished upstairs. Mrs Ray has turned our ground floor into an art gallery in which to show her and her friends’ paintings, prints and pottery during Brighton’s annual Artists Open Houses, and I’ve been told not to come down and talk to visitors ‘or otherwise spoil things’. What can she mean?

Order today. I had my regular May meeting with the accounts department (Mrs Ray) the other night and it did not go well. The general gist was that I’m a profligate fool and that I need to drink less, not to mention less expensively. And no, she did not appreciate me quoting the late, great

Order today. As you know, when it comes to champagne, Pol Roger is pretty much The Spectator’s house pour. Indeed, a dog-eared sign on the door of the office fridge demands that staff always ensure there are two bottles chilling within it for emergency celebrations and commiserations or simply for whenever the moment strikes. It’s

Order today. I don’t know how well you know Amsterdam, but there’s a frightfully swanky hotel there called The Dylan in which I was lucky enough to blag myself and Mrs Ray a jolly weekend a year or so ago. There are many fine things about The Dylan but that which tickles me the most

Email your order today. It’s flipping well snowing as I write, but my Glyndebourne tickets have come and my MCC pass has just plopped on to the mat so it must surely be spring. And where a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, so this old soak’s fancy lightly turns to just

Order now. A reader upbraided me gently the other day saying he felt I was overly effusive about the wines I feature in these pages. He hinted that I must be in the pay of the merchants in order to endorse quite so heartily whatever six random wines they care to offload on me. Well,

Order today. My father loved nothing more than a smutty limerick. Indeed, he delighted in penning lewd lines whenever he was encouraged to do so. This being a family magazine, I won’t sully your breakfast with his verse on Verdicchio – tame though it is – but can happily send under plain brown-paper wrapper or

Anthony and Olive Hamilton Russell love The Spectator and we love them. They have hosted more Spectator Winemaker Lunches than any other producer (they’ll be in our boardroom again next week) and it was only the afterglow of the splendidly bibulous Spectator/Hamilton Russell dinner at Tate Britain the night before lockdown that kept me going

Readers (and writers) of The Spectator have long adored the wines of Château Musar, the cult winery of Lebanon. Indeed, thanks to our chums at Mr Wheeler, we have such a close relationship with the estate that our loyalty is being rewarded by yet another bona fide Speccie scoop: for the next month, this is

Dry January is but a memory and, nearing the end of a demi-sec February fortnight — just a precaution to check that everything is working as it should be — I’m pretty much match fit once again and raring to go. I certainly loved choosing these delectable Yapp Bros wines on your behalf and, with

Well I don’t know about you but I’m just that little bit overexcited. In a couple of days I’ll be free of this ridiculous, self-imposed, puritanical water wagon regime and I’ve the wheelie suitcase dusted off and ready in anticipation. Roll on Wine Time Friday! If Boris leaves us nothing else to remember him by

Cooee, we’re back! And back in some style with a corking offer from Swig, stalwarts of the Spectator Wine Club under my sainted predecessors. I’m so pleased we’ve tempted them back, especially in this, their 25th anniversary year. Founded by Robin Davis in north London’s Belsize Park, Swig has become one of the country’s finest

OK, so this is it folks, the final offer of the year and quite a toothsome one it is. Tom Harrow, the genial wine hound behind Honest Grapes, has a knack of unearthing overlooked gems on his travels, and after a quick flit to Bordeaux, he’s done it again. Not for nothing is Honest Grapes

Forget the blasted Advent calendars and the vile tat in the shops, it’s the time-honoured festive offer with Corney & Barrow which tells us that Christmas is really on its way. And hurrah for that! No, not Christmas, silly, we could all do without that, I mean hurrah for the offer, which is nigh on

The last bell of term has rung and that’s it for the Spectator Wine School for another year. Conducted via Zoom over four successive Thursdays, the sellout course was expertly taught by Laura Taylor, marketing director of our partners Private Cellar. Truancy rates were almost nonexistent — but then three 75cl bottles of wine per

So I’ve had my booster jab — hurrah! — and if it wasn’t for my early-onset CADDAD (Christmas Affected Doom, Depression and Despondency) I’d be raring to go. As it is, though, I seem to be en route to the Depths of Gloom via Lowest Point and a change at Rock Bottom. The blasted carols

I love burgundy, you love burgundy, we all love burgundy. And for those who didn’t fill their boots a fortnight ago with treats from the Jaffelin stable, we’ve an absolute ripsnorter of an offer this week, featuring six stunners from the mighty Domaine Chanson. Founded in Beaune in 1750, DC has been owned by the

Getting to grips with Burgundy and its wines is a life’s work. But what greater quest or hobby could there be? Trainspotting? Quilting? Collecting postman’s hats? I think not. As you know — well-versed wine-loving Spectator reader that you are — there are just two grape varieties to bother with in Burgundy: Chardonnay and Pinot

Yet again we have been cruelly misled. All the wild assurances from those supposedly in charge that Christmas had been cancelled — thanks to Covid, Brexit, Insulate Britain, leaves on the line or whatever the current mismanaged crisis is — turn out to be complete bunk. Unfortunately, despite no petrol, no delivery drivers and no