Drink Bill Knott

restaurant in Britain north of Marylebone. Arlene’s the cook, and bearded Craig, a former bank manager (one of the last of a near-extinct breed), is the waiter. Twenty-four covers and pure joy.

Anyway, assuming you’re too busy to take the West Highland line from Glasgow to Mallaig through terrain so beautiful that there’s little wonder the Scots want it all for themselves and the Japanese, you must head to Marylebone.

Don’t bother with the menu. Order a bottle of Pays d’Oc Chardonnay for £30, and dream of Brittany while you order the starter of four different oysters for £12.

Nick – he’s French but he’s gone native – is the cook/fishmonger. And here’s his recipe. Don’t try this at home.

Take three friends and pay £88 for as much bouillabaisse as you can eat in one lunchtime. Nick will arrive with a huge, glass bowl of familiar-looking thick, brown gloop with mussels and clams. Just as you’re thinking, ‘Where’s the fish?’, Nick will arrive with a huge, flat pan of filleted John Dory, red mullet, prawns, queen scallops and whatever is on the slab, all cooked in a light stock infused with paprika, saffron and star anise.

The idea is that you choose the level of fishiness in your own bowl, adding, as you wish, from the glass bowl of the strong stuff, which is 50:50 lobster bisque and real fish soup.

Plutocratic Nick and I recently went to Bentley’s for twice the price, and not one dish compared to this. Yes, the seafood cocktail was delicious but, at £29.50, it should have been brought to the table by the Nereids – but they’re all busy working for Nick in Marylebone and Arlene in Mallaig.

DRINK BILL KNOTT LE BEAUJOLAIS MONDE

Back in 1996, when the mania for Beaujolais nouveau was still at its height, as a stunt for a new food and drink magazine I had the idea of taking a few cases of English wine over to France.

Further research revealed that my startlingly original wheeze had first been staged in 1911, but no matter. On the morning of the third Thursday in November – the official release date for Beaujolais – a Rolls-Royce containing a trio of rosbifs rocked up in the town square of Beaujeu, the capital of Beaujolais.

The car’s capacious boot was filled with wines from Three Choirs and Lamberhurst and we poured them enthusiastically for the town’s residents.

Well, that was the idea. As it turned out, the whole town had been celebrating

This month’s Oldie wine offer, in conjunction with DBM Wines, is a 12-bottle case comprising four bottles each of three terrific clarets that you might wish to lay in for the festive season, all of which are drinking very nicely now: two from the underrated 2019 vintage and one from the classic 2015 vintage. Or you can buy cases of each individual wine.

the new vintage the night before, not wisely but too well, and the only sign of life was a group of pneumatic-drill-toting road workers. Occasionally, a first-floor jalousie would be flung open, and a forehead-clutching resident would tell them to shut up and get lost, in a torrent of visceral grunts that only a very hungover Frenchman can achieve.

The road workers – and, eventually, a smattering of locals desperate for a hair of the dog – took surprisingly well to our wines, perhaps because they were free.

We had to placate the local café-owner by ordering heavily from his wine list by way of compensation.

It was then I discovered that Beaujolais could be more than merely Ribena for grown-ups. A Morgon and a Chiroubles, both with a few years on the clock, seemed almost Burgundian in their depth and elegance. In fact, as Cyril Chirouze, winemaker at the Louis Jadot-owned Château des Jacques, recently pointed out to me over lunch at St James’s splendid Maison François, Beaujolais has always been part of Burgundy. A century ago, its top wines were just as highly esteemed.

Château des Jacques’s single-vineyard wines are impressive, especially the Moulin-à-Vent Clos des Rochegrès. The best value is to be found at Sainsbury’s (sainsburys.co.uk), who stock the deliciously fruity, spicy, satin-smooth Château des Jacques Moulin-à-Vent 2019 for £18. I found it on a six-bottleminimum promotion for £13.50.

Elsewhere, the Wine Society has a good range of Beaujolais crus (including the 2018 vintage of Château des Jacques’s Morgon Côte du Py, in magnum for £51, a perfect centrepiece for the Christmas table). DBM (dbmwines.co.uk) stock both a Brouilly – the raspberry-scented Château des Tours 2019 (£17.99) – and a wellstructured Côte de Brouilly, Chanrion 2019 (£16.99).

Back in 1996, blizzards swept across Beaujolais’s hills and we were snowbound for two days, forced to seek shelter in some very convivial cellar restaurants. They all seemed to boast long trestle tables peopled with cheerful locals and adorned with copious flagons of Beaujolais and pig served 32 ways.

I have rarely been happier.

Powerful blackberry fruit and fine tannins: delicious now, yet definitely built to last. A wine that needs a roast rib of beef.

Made in a modern, fruitforward style, but from a thoroughly old-school blend of varieties, with a hefty splash of Malbec in the mix. Ripe and fresh, with a hint of spice.

Plenty of plummy fruit from the high proportion of Merlot: fully mature and great value.