In which I go to supermarket without incident

In recent times I have made significant inroads into kerbing my supermarket neuroses. For many years I had to put my groceries on the belt arranged into the 5 major food groups (fruit and vegetables first) then toiletries at the end. This is so that the first impression of the checkout chick (or chap) is that one is healthy, their last impression that one is clean. Now that I take a backpack to the supermarket I arrange things in weight order for ease of packing, although for some reason they always want to reach down the belt and take the eggs first, ruining my structural designs.

The one habit I cannot kick, though, is worrying about is other customers being judgmental about my wine choices (yes, I buy wine at the supermarket sometimes, got a problem?) Not so much because they might disagree with my objective selections (my taste being generally beyond reproach), but more that they might extrapolate from the other items in my basket to what I might pair the wine with, and impugn my selection accordingly. Being not as proficient at food and wine matching as some others, this makes me vulnerable to criticism, something to which I am usually impervious.

Last Thursday, however, I was open to attack on both fronts, because in a fit of idiocy and homesickness I chose a bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay hoping, naively as it turns out, to prove myself wrong in thinking that you can’t get a good wine in Waitrose Bloomsbury for under £7. I hid the bottle under some potatoes, milk and parsley (I was making fish pie) and scurried head down to the checkout. Luckily I needn’t have worried. The guy behind me had a can of baked beans, two rice puddings, a block of cheddar cheese and two bottles of pinot grigio, so he was hardly in a position to judge. I admire his honesty though – I’d rather be at his house for dinner than the woman who had a bottle of pink Moet, 20 plastic cups and some pre-made Waitrose tapas ready-presented in faux terracotta plastic dishes. Who does she think she’s kidding? Anyway, I won’t bore you with a description of the terminally disappointing Wolf Blass, except to say that it tastes how a lagerphone sounds – bland and abrasive.

I had to wait for Friday for decent chardonnay, by which time I had learnt my lesson and was squarely back in Burgundy. The 2005 Domaine Vincent Sauvestre Santenay (£10) has a healthy golden colour. It’s silky and buttery in the mouth, with good stone fruit presence. The oak is a tad sappy and the wine has perhaps a bit of a high chlorine note that doesn’t sit well, but otherwise very attractive.

On Sunday I had a second stab at the whole food/wine matching thing. An Austrian friend of mine came over for dinner with her posse. After an aperitif of 2006 Loimer Gruner Veltliner, I paired a starter of seared scallops with asparagus and scallop roe sauce (soundly like something from an Iron Chef scallop challenge…) with the 2006 Domaine Vocoret Chablis Premier Cru Vaillon (£12). I can’t remember how it tasted but it was really super. Very round – I was under a bit of stress what with all the cooking and forgot to take a note. Anyway you can get it at Majestic and it’s very good.

With a roast shoulder of lamb came the 2005 Frederic Mabileau Bourgueil 'Racines' (£12) and yes, wasn’t I being adventurous pairing a lively little cabernet franc with a traditional roast dinner? It worked beautifully actually – the wine has really lifted, up-front crunchy fruit: plum, cherry, blackcurrant leaf, mint, even a smoky, flinty dimension. Loads of interest and grippy tannins to finish. Then a claret, of course! The 1998 Chateau Potensac (£18 if you know where to look) is showing beautifully. It has an energetic nose – mint, ash, cigar box, and a rich, fatty palate of cassis liqueur that rolls over the tongue and down the gullet as edgelessly as the clarinet solo at the beginning of the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s C minor concerto. Sorry if that’s a bit inaccessible, but sometimes I get bored of words as a medium of expression.