Beyond the commercial and the nerdy this country boasts a broad network of wine

Beyond the commercial and the nerdy, this country boasts a broad network of wine clubs ranging from the small and informal to groups that call on visiting speakers, organise dinners and arrange trips abroad. Like book clubs, wine clubs are an example of putting something in and getting a lot more out.Phil Collins’ band (no relation) holds just such informal get-togethers. We would taste, sometimes blind, mull over the contents, and wash the lot down with food. Before long, the evening would degenerate into a social bash with no regrets, at least until the morning after. The first part of the evening was often instructive, the second part invariably a lorra laughs, as Cilla might have put it.
The word “club” may smack of a wine merchant trying to offload its wares, or a society of imbibing anoraks clucking over which side of the C?R? is brune and which blonde, but it need not be a turn-off. Every once in a while, the BYO (bring your own) club would gather over a few bottles of wine each of us had chosen on a theme, be it claret from a special vintage or Aussie shiraz. Jeroboams/Laytons (020-7730 8108) sell this for £8.40 (£7.77 per bottle in a case), but have a “while stocks last” offer of £5.95 per bottle per three cases from today.

Team up with a couple of mates for a case each for the claret bargain of the year.. Today, the Iles family is making the sort of sensibly priced, petit ch?au claret that the Bordelais would do well to emulate.The 2001 L’Enclos du Ch?au Lezongars, Premi?s C? de Bordeaux, a blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon, echoes the well-crafted 2000 with refreshing acidity and robust tannin suggesting improvement over four to five years. It’s around £10 from Berry Brothers & Rudd (0870 900 4300), Jeroboams/Laytons and the Good Wine Shop, Isleworth (020-8892 7756).The 2000 Ch?au Lezongars, also a merlot-cabernet sauvignon blend, has the opulence of the fine 2000 vintage with seamless blackberry and dark cherry fruitiness. The sleepy backwater of Villenave-de-Rions in the Premi?s C? de Bordeaux has been given a fresh lease of life at the 45-hectare Ch?au Lezongars by an Englishman, Philip Iles, and his wife and son.
The wine-loving Iles family moved to Villenave-de-Rions (winningly rendered as “Villenave-of-let us laugh” in its website translation) in 1998, since when the cellar has been refurbished, part of the vineyards replanted, new drainage installed and substantial investment made in oak barrels. Calling all claret lovers, or at least those happy few who remember what a good-value, traditional, red Bordeaux tastes like. This was a really happy meal.I must confess, the name of Nash’s mineral water (£2) was new to me. I used to drink tap water as a matter of course but, recently, I’ve started buying bottled But you know what Nash’s offered me? Wetness.

If I’m going to pay for water, I want something with real, discernible flavour, not just something in a nice bottle. So I forgot the Nash’s, and sprang for a carafe of decent house white.My idea of eating less by sitting next to the mirror wasn’t working. It’s fast food but it’s all vegetarian – vegan if you have the organic mushroom burger with tortilla chips, not the cheese salad.Hounds Gate, Nottingham (0115 9415121). A complete vertical meal of three different dishes costs around £6; a kebab wrap costs half that.Bull ring, Birmingham (0800 5053 060)V1Baseball-cap-wearing staff and fries with everything.

All in a cute cardboard box.Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 (020-7377 1114)TiffinbitesExcellent Indian takeaways served in stacking tiffin boxes (plastic rather than the real Bombay metal McCoy). Steak and Guinness or jerk chicken and sweet potato pies for £4.25, a quid for mash, and mushy peas for 45p. Take a cardboard tray and pick-and-mix nicely cooked dishes from around the world for around a fiver.9 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1 (020-7930 7826)Square Pie CompanyPie and mash, London’s fast food, gets a makeover. But for the rest? There’s finally a place where you can have your cake and eat it.Leon, 35 Great Marlborough Street, London W1, 020-7437 5280Food Ambience Service Meal for two, with wine, about £30SIDE ORDERS: FAST FOOD, BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT By Caroline StaceyGloThai curry with African couscous and apple crumble for afters at this new joint.