A cultural encounter, a bargain, a souvenir, a canny piece of housekeeping: however you look at it, returning from a summer holiday with the car packed with wine satisfies deep instincts.

Fancy investing in burgundy?

As a Europhile, euro-enthusiast republican living on a Eurosceptic island devoted to its monarchy and its national currency, there are a number of revolutions which I accept may never come to pass.

Wine tastes nice. This will, I know, be the most banal sentence ever to appear in Decanter magazine, but it’s an important starting point for what follows.

Every reader of this magazine has something in common. We all enjoy analysing, thinking and talking about aroma and flavour.

Well, what would you do?

A specialised cultural commentator? A trainspotter with snob appeal? A doughty consumer champion in a world of manipulation and pretence? Or a drug user writing for other drug users?

Who is Oz Clarke?

I know I ought not to do this, but I just can’t help it.

It had an obscure, muddy birth. In middle age, the pressure piled up (at least 1500 bars’ worth). The heat was on, too: over 150°C, to be precise.