Village life in Andalucia

There is a lot of posh talk about wine, most of it out of date. When my Dad was a lad he drank beer. Mild, mild and bitter, lemontop (for women) and snakebite that has cider in it.

I remember being sent to Switzerland to stay with my aunt in laws’ parents and learn French. I was 13. I came back with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. nothing to do with Switzerland obviously but it featured in a school French lesson so I thought it would go down well. It didn’t. Dad spat it out saying it was sour and what had I learned over there? Well . . .mum and dad drank Blue Nun and Reisling in those days.

Dad will be ninety next birthday and his taste has developed. He still enjoys a bottle or two of Chilean Merlot between fags. He despises Spanish wine and doesn’t think much of French. He’s a “New World” man. And a Tesco man. Three for £12. Beer that used to cost a penny ha’penny is now a fiver a pint. Dearer than a pint of average Merlot, so we embibe it only occasionlly and as a treat. Red wine is the everyday drink.

In the following articles I will try to lure him towards the pleasures of Spanish wine – a delight as delicious as it is cheap, being largely unknown, unappreciated and denegrated by those snobs who believe that when it comes to drinking, reputation counts for more than taste.