Red and Brown

This week I didn’t take a crap between Wednesday and Friday. Is that normal? I can only think of two things that might have provoked this problem (now allayed many times over, in case you care, although if you do I’d be worried about my demographic…) My flatmate has just started learning the saxophone, and I’ve taken to reading the London Review of Books whilst on the loo. I was sort of hoping that the combination of brown tones and purple prose would keep my bowels in their pre-existing state of equilibrium, but apparently not. Clearly too much saxophone. I swear to god that if Adam plays Fly Me to the Moon one more time with the same wrong note in bar 7 (he clearly hasn’t learnt the “sharp” sign yet), he’ll have that saxophone so far up him it will be him that isn’t shitting for days at a time.

Of course, the other thing about Wednesday and Thursday was that I didn’t drink. (Or Monday, for that matter, although that had no effect on my "regularity"). This is all part of my new “drink nice things a couple of times a week, not plonk several times a week” regime. But the new way did not serve me all that well this week.

On Tuesday night I was at the annual Denning Society dinner. As functions of this sort go, it’s quite nice really. You get a good meal, and for two years in a row now the after dinner speaker has been funny, and you get to dress up, and there are people less than 40 years one’s senior there. That’s pretty good as posh lawyer dinners go. At comparable events one usually listens to old farts say things like “Oh, you just can’t get a good hotel in London for under £400 a night” and you can’t even respond by saying “Oh come on, the Comfort Inn King’s Cross isn’t bad if the hookers are having a slow night” – instead you have to say “oh yes, yes, one’s better off staying at one’s club, although the tariff at the East India has been creeping up for the last few years.”

Even the wine wasn’t bad. With the fish course we had a 2006 Caves de Haut Poitou sauvignon blanc – fresh and inoffensive, with crisp tropical fruit, but nothing to detract from the sparkling conversation we were having about Lord Denning’s judgment in Vandervell's case. With the main course there was a 2003 Chateau Lescalle Bordeaux Superieur, which had respectable blackcurrant-driven cabernet fruit and a soft mouthfeel. The oak was of on a planet of its own, but you can’t have it all.

And that was it until Friday, when I pulled out a bottle of 2003 Te Awa Hawkes Bay Cabernet Merlot (£9). I’ve waxed rhapsodic about this wine in the past, but I must say that on subsequent occasions it has disappointed me. It works best decanted and with plenty of time to breathe, whence it shows lovely cool climate cabernet fruit. But on Friday (and also when I tried it before Christmas) it was thin on the palate, although still showing a good nose of mint, blackcurrant and plum pudding.

And that was it again until tonight. I’ve spent the day buying up wine for a couple of up-coming tastings, and decided to road-test the 2004 Castello della Paneretta Chianti Classico with my dinner (£12 at Majestic, £10 if you buy two or more). On its own it’s a bit of a wallflower – closed nose, vinous palate. But with food it comes into its own, with aromas of dark chocolate, cherries, dried herbs and spicy oak, and fresh acidity on the palate.

Adam has just started up again, so I’m going to put on Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and pour another glass. Only the atonal can drown out the atonal. With the help of alcohol, that is.