An Occasional Tipple: Building hope with these fine wines

You see, idyllic and all as it undoubtedly is, our beloved home, perched atop a cliff overlooking the ocean on the majestic North Antrim coastline, is also riddled with damp.

And so my beloved wife, the illustrious Madame G., and I have spent the weekend moving all our belongings from the ground floor of our cosy little palace to the attic so that the workmen can tear it all apart and render it fit once more for human habitation. The bugs don't seem to mind.

Thirsty auld work. Once you get into it, it's not too bad. More doable than feared. My granny knew her onions.

Every workman deserves his wages and ours came in the wholesome, hearty form of good butcher's beef and black pepper sausages with pickled cabbage and spuds which I matched with today's WINE OF THE WEEK, the elegant, soft and supple 2022 M&S Classics Pinotage (currently, £8).

This complex, medium-bodied South African red has an opulent palate full of blackberry and plum flavours which combine most pleasingly with subtle strands of tobacco and tar before a magnificently lengthy, deeply satisfying finish. Hints of spice and dark, bitter chocolate abound.

Also worth considering for your Sunday roasts of beef or lamb. None for us- even if we weren't up to our eyeballs in work already- as the oven is kaput too.

When sorrows come they come not single spies but in battalions, as someone whose name rhymes with MakesFear once said.

Today's second recommendation is another eminently affordable red, important when you're about to hand a stranger £10,000 in the hope that your house won't fall down.

Light-bodied and impressively smooth, the easy-drinking, versatile and extravagantly flavoursome Tierra Y Hombre Pinot Noir (£6.50, M&S) comes jampacked with damson and dark cherry flavours. Peking Duck, anyone?

Lovers of white, I will never forget you. For I am you. At least I am if there's a hint of sunshine about. Not today then, but lots of other days. I digress.

Check out the fresh, fragrant and gloriously refreshing 2022 Roero Arneis (£9.99) from Lidl's new promotion of Italian wines, their Italian Wine Cellar which opens this Thursday, October 5. I got a sneak preview for free. Because I'm me.

Every workman deserves his wages, upon which note I'm delighted to record that this unoaked white is brimful of juicy peach and sharper lime flavours alongside grassy and herbaceous aromatics.

One for a warm chicken and coriander salad with rocket, sundried tomatoes and black olives.

Alas, as Casanova reportedly apologised to the vicar's daughter, I must disengage now.

Till next week, tipplers, so long as my house is still standing and my wife hasn't put me out of my misery, sante!