One for the price of two

I came up with a great plan recently. Drink less, drink better. Instead of two wines for £5.99 drink one at £11.99. Benefiting both pleasure and health. Cunning... or so I thought. This was my first venture.

Unfortunately it is utterly, totally delicious, I can't stop drinking it and at £10.99 a bottle it's costing me a fortune. Beguilingly complex wine with a gorgeous texture that's almost waxy. It smells like being inside a top notch Italian deli... salami, icing sugar, honey, lemon, nuts... panatone? On the palette it's a bit like when the runny centre of a boiled sweet bursts. Best drunk not too cold. My extensive experiments have determined ten minutes in the freezer box to be about perfect.

After picking up my latest bottle I was dithering over which red to buy. A very upright older gentleman turned to me and said in a thick French accent, "Zis one is a very good bottle of wine, it iz delicious for the money". What the hell, I'm of an age where acting on the suggestions of older strangers is no longer so much of a concern...

When a Frenchman recommends an Italian's wine you know it must be good. It was, exceedingly good for £7.99. Possibly not to everyone's taste... quite structured, with a piercing smell that reminded me of proper cider, the stuff where the farmers bung in the odd carcass with the fermenting apples to help "flavour it up a bit see".

I was thinking while drinking it, why is a Frenchman a Frenchman but an Italian just an Italian?

Both wines came from Waitrose:

Verdicchio di Matelica (not quite Metalica): £10.99

Barbera D'Asti Superiore, I Tre Vescovi: £7.99