Discovering sediment

When it comes to the noble grape, I'm neither a connoisseur nor an utter philistine. I quite like the odd drop of the stuff and can, I think, tell the difference between a decent, quaffable wine and paint stripper. I have also, over the years, managed to perfect the art of concealing one's feelings when discovering the latter in polite company. My father-in-law, one of the most charming individuals one could wish to encounter in life, has an unfortunate propensity to serve wine that is, how shall I put it, well past its sell-by date. To make matters worse, there is always a preamble to the pouring. This will usually entail a colourful anecdote or two regarding the acquisition of said bottle from a particularly remote chateaux located well off the beaten track. 

Anyway, I digress. The purpose of this post is to draw the reader's attention to a rather good blog that I stumbled upon by chance. Entitled Sediment it has been crafted by two delightful if slightly Edwardian characters who go by the monikers: CJ and PK. The pair wouldn't be out of place in Jerome K Jerome's famous boat. While CJ has a penchant for anything vaguely crimson and is in constant search of that elusive  bargain from the likes of Lidl or Waitrose, PK aspires to far greater things. But the point about this blog isn't the fact that it's informative, which it undoubtedly is, so much as its entertainment value. Indeed, you don't have to be a wine buff to appreciate the musings of this droll double-act.

By way of a taster (no pun intended), here's a line from CJ's recent post: 'So I look at the wine rack in the kitchen the other day, and there is a bottle in it which I have no recollection of purchasing. It's normally pretty easy to see what's in the rack and what's not, because the rack (as a rule) has almost nothing in it on account of me drinking everything before it gets a chance to stop moving, let alone age in a horizontal position.'

And to be even-handed, here's a delicious sample from PK's account of supping wine in the company of His Holiness, the Archbishop of Canterbury: 'You pass through the Palace doorway, and realise you must be in the company of good people, because the cloakroom lacks not only an attendant, but any kind of numbering or security system. Who indeed would steal from the house of an Archbishop? (Apart from a King or two…)'

If, like me, you like a good read and aren't averse to having the funny bone well and truly tickled, immerse yourself in the world of CJ and PK. It could become something of an addictive habit. 

Alex Pearl is author of Sleeping with the Blackbirds