“We were finished with Sunday night dinner. The conversation called up the best of wines (we had decided to swallow bitterly our experience of the worst of wines),” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

STRANGE how conversations sometimes devolve to the best and worst of life. I think it’s an ideal to be like Disraeli: prepare for the worst but hope for the best. 

Steph, my daughter who is the assistant manager at the Boat House, in Barton, adds: “Plus, lower your expectations and you’ll be less disappointed.” 

“Hopefully,” he says, in a fatherly way, “not what you say to your partner.” Despite what he might say, she is the best. 

We were finished with Sunday night dinner. The conversation called up the best of wines (we had decided to swallow bitterly our experience of the worst of wines) and the atmosphere of regurgitated memory was almost as powerful as the lingering smell of fried meat in the air. 

Steph began with her reminiscence of the best of wines by mentioning a German riesling, Dr Thanisch Bernkasteler Kabinett (vintage not recollected), which she tasted in 2021. 

“A group at the Boat House were asking for the most expensive sweet wine after they didn’t meet their minimum spend. The wine at the time I offered, on the advice of my manager, was our sweet German riesling. It isn’t a dessert wine. Subsequently, I had the pleasure of a taste. At that time, I’d only tried Canberra rieslings and my palate was not developed, certainly a lot less than now. 

“It was a gorgeous fresh apple finish that reminded me of Apfelschorle, which is German sparkling apple juice from when I was in Stuttgart on exchange, when I was 15, great days. 

“It was memorable because the sweeter wines I’d tried up to then were syrupy and this wine had a brightness and freshness that I had not previously experienced in a sweet wine. It just felt right, it gave me a discovery of sweetness and complexity.”

“Yes,” I said pontificating, “context is important, maybe everything.” 

“When I tried a non-vintage Veuve Clicquot at two in the morning with scrambled eggs made with cream and chives that the chef/owner had cooked because we’d got back from an outside catering function where he’d made a lot of money and wanted to reward us, I thought I’d gone to heaven. 

“I was 20 years old, poor and hirsute and French champagne was otherwise a mirage. The wine had a clean finish that swept away, in the best possible way, the creamy lushness of the egg dish. Plus I was by then so hungry fried rocks probably would have tasted acceptable. 

“I’ve since tried vintage champagne that hasn’t stuck in the memory the way that this first taste did, the way it exemplified success and reward.”

“Yes,” said Steph, “the first time you try good French champagne is generally memorable. 

“A friend and I met in Liverpool and it was my friend’s 21st birthday where we had fries with cheese curds and a champagne that I had bought duty free. Quite weirdly, that was also a Veuve. Madame Clicquot has a lot to answer for,” Steph said laughing. 

“It was such a contrast, fries and champers, so memorable, a captured beautiful moment.” 

Yes, indeed. As the Irish novelist John Banville said: “I don’t think we remember the past, we imagine it. We take those moments of memory and wrap them in the indescribable; we don’t know at the time that these are going to be enduring moments but it’s only when we share those moments with those we love that they take on their essentiality. The best of most things in life endure.”