Writing, With Wine

W C Fields once quipped, “I cook with wine – sometimes I even add it to the food”. I do something similar. I write with wine – and sometimes I even get some writing done.

Right now I’m sitting at my favourite table in one of my most familiar writing haunts, laptop next to an open bottle – a fairly humdrum house red to be honest – and two glasses. One of the glasses is empty. I like to be prepared for a random encounter with a passing acquaintance or a more deliberate seeking out by a friend in need of sousing his newest sorrow, which is why the writing is regularly not done. Still, without liquid encouragement I doubt I’d be able to crank out many more words from my rusty brain, so it probably evens out in the end.

Oddly enough as I finished that last sentence I was interrupted by an old friend (well, client really, but he’s a lovely guy) who pointed at a Poundland bag he was carrying and proceeded to tell me that Isis was in there and did I realise he used to be Osiris, and a mummy, and in fact had only just unwrapped his bandages and did I know he could remember every past life right back to the time he was a Pharoah … and, no, no wine thanks, the Gods don’t let him drink wine, only stout and bitter shandy, it’s good for the digestion, and Isis never drank anything but the milk of specially bred asses, but of course you knew that …

Then he grabbed his Poundland Isis, hugged it close, and whispered “you’re working, aren’t you! … I saw you in the market once, you’re a good man, but do you mind if I leave you now?” He looked at me intently, as if he were asking permission, not wanting to move till he’d made sure that I was content to be deprived of his company; “The wine is making me feel nervous …”

I feel genuinely sorry for anyone unnerved by wine. In my friend’s case, he is obviously on a considerable amount of medication – though perhaps not the right stuff, and I’ll have to have a word. But for most of us wine is an essential social lubricant, anxiety reducer and general spreader of good cheer. According to the great Christopher Hitchens it “makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing” and Russell Brand got it right for once when he declared “We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.”

So, we all love wine, right?

It’s a good job as The Culture Vulture is beginning a bit of an experiment this week … we are doing sponsored posts. And the first sponsor is wine, of course! Asda wine to be precise. The deal is we have been given ten bottles (and a certain amount of money) to review/appreciate the wine. Simple as that. Can say whatever we like – and we are always honest, critical but friendly – and as I think wine goes best with other people and is a natural story inducer I am sharing the wine with ten lucky people in return for a tale. I have a couple of people lined up but was hoping for a bit of help.

Who would it be good to share a bottle with? Who has a good story to tell? Send suggestions in the comments and I’ll open a bottle to celebrate.