Anyone who knows me well would not be surprised to learn that I’m no wine buff, they might even regard me as almost teetotal (well my maternal grandparents were “Band of Hope”. In truth, when not dieting (which is not very often – I do try to be good), I’m not averse to the odd glass of wine, Pimms, gin and tonic or the first sip of a cold glass of lager on a hot day: and when I’m in France… I drink like the locals – like a fish – because I speak better French after a few glasses of wine (at least I think I do).

On Friday evening our friend and neighbour, Caroline, called around for drinks. Now Caroline is a beautiful, vivacious party-goer and something of a wine connoisseur; I gathered the latter because, earlier in the day, she said that she wanted to repay a kindness from Chris with a bottle of good wine.

“What kind of wine does Chris like?” she inquired.

“Um…” I racked my brains, “I know he likes Chardonnay…”

“Oh, he likes white wine?” Caroline raised her eyebrows.

“Well sometimes but he likes red wine too. Isn’t Chardonnay the nice buttery white wine?” I wondered if there was something wrong with liking white wine.

“No, I think it’s a bit oaky.” (This is where Caroline showed her great knowledge of wine matters.)

“Okay, I must be mistaken. Say, I’ll ask Chris what he likes and let you know when I see you later.”

Four hours later the gorgeous wine expert was seated in our lounge-room and I remembered what Chris had told me…

“Oh, by the way, Chris likes Ricotta wine. Hold on… no that’s not right… that’s -”

“A cheese!” laughed Caroline finishing my sentence.

“Well it sounds like Ricotta. It begins with an “R” and sounds similar to Ricotta.Oh, what is it Chris?” I called out to my husband who was uncorking a bottle of wine in the kitchen.

“Rioja!” he called back, “It’s Spanish!” (That bit of information made all the difference to me.)

Chris entered the lounge with a bottle of red wine (of some particular sort, which was quite nice as it turned out) and three glasses.

“In this regard Sally reminds me of my mother,” Chris turned to Caroline and I knew he was going to tell a funny story. “You see, my father had been a teetotaller all his life so we never had any alcohol in our house – I made up for it in ‘the city’ when I had left home – and Mum never went into a pub until my dad passed away. My mum’s boyfriend wasn’t teetotal – Arthur liked going into pubs – and one day we were all in a pub; the barman looked at my mother and asked for her order. She answered, ‘I’ll have an orange juice and he’ll have a Manikin!’”

“What did she mean?” I asked (just to make sure I was right).

“A Heineken,” Chris said and he and Caroline looked at me surprised.

“Of course, that’s what I thought,” I bluffed.

And I took a sip from my half-glass of the nice wine – I’m still on my diet.