The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Some places seem timeless. You can feel the genteel force of an all absorbing continuity making sure things go on more or less the same and more or less forever.

Everyone arriving here gets surrepticiously assimilated. Linger just a little too long and generations of your family will live and die beneath the Iron Age fort on Table Mountain.

Llangattock church tower was built by the fierce, expansionist Normans some 900 years ago.

Today it's policed by contractionist Christians repelling invaders through smugness rather than battlements. It's just a short stroll across the graveyard and across an ancient bridge, to Crickhowell.

Here I still regularly bump into the descendant of a man who fought with Henry V at Agincourt (himself born just down the road in Monmouth). Often in The Bear Hotel, founded 200 years after that famous trouncing of the French. Recently it's crackling fires warmed Johnny Depp's breeches after a hard days filming at Tretower Court, a medieval manor near by. It's a lovely bar with real ale, passable food and a good wine list. There's a slightly different experience to be had across the road where the pretty exterior of the 18th Century 'Brit' belies what lurks within.

The last time I opened this door on a Boxing Day it was packed to the gunnels with people dancing, singing and screaming... high on life and quite a lot else. I was bear hugged by an old friend not seen in years who shouted in my ear, "Bloody marvellous to see you! I got married!"... before pointing to a woman lifting her top while dancing on the pool table and shouting, "That's her there". Well, what do you say?

Continuity don't do it for me. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of wine. Variability, surprise and endless contradictions all make life more fun. Amid some Jacobean warmth this was the finest wine I drank all Christmas...

From the 1990 vintage. Over the years the power and tannin of Cornas has given way to a beautiful, complex, fragrant wine more Burgundy than Rhone. I could drink it for breakfast. Not that I'll get the chance. The wine maker Robert Michel retired in 2006 and sold his vines to various concerns. There will never be any other wines like these.

CLICK HERE FOR SOME GUFF ON THE BEAR HOTEL

& HERE FOR SOME ON TRETOWER COURT

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.