A Winner's Dinner

This year I took a punt on our office's General Election sweepstake. A fiendishly complicated graph where, for a £1, you get to place 3 Xs depending on... well I can't actually remember. It was explained to me by a very clever person and, for a fleeting few seconds, I thought I'd grasped it. But when it came to committing my Xs to paper I did what I always do... put them in the big spaces where nobody else had put any. My reasoning is simple enough... if very clever people could actually predict outcomes then they'd all be very rich and bookies would all be very poor. This isn't the case. And what would you know...

I'd decided to invest my new found wealth in a nice bottle of wine. Something with which to remember my good fortune. Then I popped my winnings into a drawer and forgot all about them... until yesterday. Excitedly I decided to pay a visit to one of my favourite wine merchants...

After a brief conversation about the provenance of an interesting looking Alberino... "Eh, I've nae idea pal, never drink the stuff. Think ma burd likes that wan though"... I settled on two bottles.

The Chablis costs £23 and comes from apparently 'on form' producers William Fevre.

The Cornas I'd spotted a few months ago, lurking behind some other bottles on it's own... but it was £25, so I'd left it. How could I possibly leave it behind again? Surely worth a punt.

The Chablis was special. Buttery pineapple, mouthwatering acidity and an incredibly long lasting finish. This was a seriously uplifting wine. After a few glasses I was feeling positively euphoric and found myself dancing round the kitchen as I knocked up a 'Poulet Frites'.

Decanted the Cornas into a rather fetching Ikea decanter. What an incredible smell... powerful aromas of decay intermingled with black fruits. No way was this going to work with chicken, so I cracked open a Morgan for that and the Cornas got savoured afterwards. Actually this wine is so savoury it doesn't need food... it's a meal and a drink in one. Perfect for someone on a diet. Amazing how much flavour can get packed into a wine with only 13% alcohol. Still incredibly young for a nine year old wine.

Both wines came from the superbly priced range of top drawer stuff that Costco stocks.

And, I'd suggest anyone else overcome by euphoria half way down a Grand Cru Chablis should try sticking this on. It worked for me.