Drinking is something else. Drinking for me means only wine, and I did not need any Australian to persuade me of its pleasures. I like to brag that I have drunk a glass of wine every day since the second world war, and though this is not true in the fact, since I have spent much time in places where there is no wine, it is true in the principle - the chance of war introduced me to wine, and I never turned away. I believe in wine as I believe in Nature. I cherish its sacramental and legendary meanings, not to mention its power to intoxicate, and just as Nature can be both kind and hostile, so I believe that if bad wine is bad for you, good wine in moderation does nothing but good. If I am ever challenged, I refer people to that seminal work, Wine is the Best Medicine, in which the great Dr. E. A. Maury, pictured on its jacket looking terrifically healthy with a glass of champagne in his hand, prescribes a suitable wine for almost every ailment - Entre-Deux-Mers for rickets, young Beaujolais for diarrhea, two glasses of Sancerre daily to lower the blood pressure...

When I was very young I drank, like most of us, with a lack of discrimination and an unvarying enjoyment that I now envy. Thinking of myself then, I am reminded of the great Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who I witnessed drinking, I rather think, his very first glass of wine of any kind. It was at an official banquet in London. I sat next to the very old-school and gentlemanly funcionary who had arranged the occasion, and early in the evening he remarked to me that he hoped I would enjoy the claret, not just the last of its vintage in the official cellars, but perhaps the last in London. I was much impressed, and looked across at Tenzing, who was most certainly enjoying it very much indeed, having as a standard of comparison only the species of alcoholic porridge the Sherpas call tsang. His was a princely figure, and as the lackeys filled and refilled his glass his face shone with pride and pleasure. It was a delight to see him. After a while the old boy on my left turned to me again. "Oh, how good it is to see," he said with the true warmth of approval, "that Mr. Tenzing knows a decent claret when he has one!"

Patricia Volk, When I Became A Gastronome