C ONT ENT S
C ON T E N T S
How I Discovered Wine I started drinking at the age of three. We were having a picnic on the banks of the river. My brother was drowning in the weir. My father was trying to rescue him. My mother was having hysterics. And there was this bottle of my mum’s damson wine. No one was looking, so I drank it – delicious. My brother survived, but I very nearly didn’t. After my father had hauled him out of the water, he took one look at the empty bottle, turned me upside down and whacked most of the liquid out of me from whence it had entered. That put me off drinking till I was 18. Well, not quite. Later that summer my sister was christened. My father had poured out glasses of South African sherry for when the guests got home from church. Too good to miss, with my brother able to reach them from a chair. Another thick head. Another whack. I think. Actually, it all got a bit blurred by the second glass. And this time I really did get put off drink till I was 18. But I’ve always adored wines that taste of damsons, not least because I know they taste just as good on the way back up as on the way down. And I’ve always been partial to a second glass of sherry.
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