by Martin Field

I’ve occasionally been criticised by a tiny minority of readers for not taking wine seriously enough. For, as it were, too much taking of ze peez. In a spirit of détente, ecumenicalism and with good will to all, I henceforth vows to treat all wine matters with a level of appropriate gravitas. Here goes…

‘Let us have wine and women,* mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after’
That well-known clairvoyant Lord Byron wrote the above way back when. Today his words might well apply to the debate concerning the after-effects of environmental degradation and the no doubt related drought that continues to devastate Australia.

A handy barometer of Yarra Valley climate change is the unirrigated shiraz vine in our garden, which has shown signs of stress from water deprivation for the first time in 17 years. The leaves are wilted and browning at the edges; the grape bunches, while plentiful, bear sparse berries and while some show a youthful purple, many are green and scrawny.

Similarly, our tomato plants are dying, the lawn is brown and parched and our sinks are cluttered with buckets, in a foolhardy attempt to recycle greasy washing-up water.

My tastebuds have a brainwave
To cope with the water shortage, I racked my brains for a water substitute. It had to be cheap, non-toxic and with similar qualities to H2O. That is, tasteless, odourless and colourless. Then, while I was absentmindedly sipping such a liquid, my tastebuds had a brainwave (sort of like an organoleptic epiphany – to put it more simply). I’d drawn the magic potion from a four-litre cask (bag in a box) of white wine that a poverty-stricken friend had left, inadvertently, in our kitchen.

It met all the above criteria, and I thought, if Cleopatra could bathe in asses’ milk why should I not shower in cask wine? A wise move. The acid and alcohol have done wonders for my complexion, there is evidence of hair regrowth amidst my monk’s tonsure and people in the street stop to ask me where they can buy the fragrant aftershave I waft onto the breeze as I stroll along the boulevard.

Try it yourself and see. A word of warning though. When I used a bucket of the stuff to wash the car it made the paint bubble.