Last night’s wine-tasting at the WI proved to be our most popular event yet. This is perhaps no surprise when you consider that the tea-tray at our monthly meetings generally sulks forlornly in the corner. Our thirty or so members tend instead to opt for wine to lubricate the evening.
The ‘Oxford Butler’ coped admirably with the heckling from a roomful of middle-aged mothers and tactfully managed our uneducated questions about the best three for two offers at Waitrose. Just as we were swirling around the contents of our first wine, a dark-haired woman pushed open the door and asked whether she was in the right place for the church meeting.
‘Upstairs’, we chorused, well-versed now in directing people around the parish rooms.
She hesitated, her hand on the door. ‘So what meeting is this?’
‘We’re West Oxfordshire WI,’ our President announced, proudly. ‘We’re wine-tasting.’
With some reluctance, the visitor bade us farewell and headed upstairs to her meeting.
Half an hour later we were onto our third wine and happily discussing our new-found expertise, when the door creaked open again. The dark-haired woman smiled broadly, dropped her money into the pot and pulled up a chair. ‘There’s a lot to be said for getting lost,’ she said, holding out her glass. ‘I think it might be more fun here.’
I suspect (although the Vicar may disagree) that she made the right decision. By the end of the evening I had learned a great deal:
- The slower the ‘legs’ running down the inside of the wine glass, the greater the alcohol content.
- Almost every red wine benefits from being given time to breathe.
- Holding your wine glass by the stem or the base keeps the wine at the correct temperature.
- The Chequers Inn is an excellent place to continue practising ones wine-tasting skills.
- Despite it being more than a decade since I last tried, I can still put my leg behind my head.
- And do a cartwheel.
- Going to bed three hours before the school run is inadvisable.
- My hangovers last significantly longer than they did in my twenties.
All excellent reasons to join the WI, I’m sure you’d agree.