Thinking and drinking

How did the results go? After unbearable tension in the days leading up to A-level and GCSE results, there comes that euphoric moment when you realise that, despite all appearances, the students who usually clutter up the sofa and bathroom have actually been working and managed to achieve decent grades after all. Whatever the results, there will be new horizons ahead. The A-level students may soon be heading off on an expensive gap year or an even more expensive university course while the proud holders of shiny new GCSEs will be choosing subjects, maybe moving schools and thinking of career prospects.

So, before it all changes, now is the time for a family celebration that marks this change in status.

Although the legal age for buying alcohol is 17, anyone over 16 can be bought wine, beer or cider in a pub or restaurant so long as it is consumed with food and if your celebration is at home, then a glass of wine, or even Champagne, especially if served with food is a terrific way to introduce your offspring to the notion of responsible and moderate drinking.

Get them into the habit of thinking that alcohol goes with food and has flavour, style and a story behind it and this may just be enough to lure them away from the traditional university Fresher’s week of vodka shot evenings and as-much-beer-as-you-can-drink nights.

If your A- level student has hit their target grades to get to their university of choice then there is much to do. A place to live, a new duvet cover (no self-respecting student should go off with the Arsenal/Manchester United/Superman duvet which has seen them through the last few years) a set of pans and at least four coffee mugs. The idea behind having lots of mugs is to build friendships over coffee and having extra mugs can often be the ice-breaker in halls. With that in mind, your student should also be packed off with some wine glasses.

We have all drunk wine and even vintage champagne out of chipped mugs and plastic cups, but despite thinking it was fun at the time, it really didn’t taste right. A set of glasses will set the tone and could be the start of an interest that will take them through the next few years.

Whether you like it or not alcohol is going to play a fairly major role in your offspring’s life and if their consumption can be directed towards wine then they will gain pleasure, knowledge and probably a nice group of friends instead of just a hangover. Some serious wine business careers have been cultivated at university, and wine companies are always interested in showing off their wares to students who one day will have paid off their loans and be in the business of buying good wine.

So as well as teaching your sons and daughters the essentials of washing socks and survival cooking, now is the time to make sure they have enough basic wine knowledge to steer them in the right direction.

Buy them some glasses which will inevitably get broken on a regular basis so choose cheap supermarket glasses, preferably tulip-shaped and on stems. Make sure your student knows to fill them one-third to half full, and not to the brim. Demonstrate that you can get six glasses of wine from one bottle, which echoes the coffee-mug principle and could be a great way of building friendships.

Pack a corkscrew. Despite 70 per cent of all cheap wine now coming with screwcaps, if your student wants to impress the girl/bloke down the corridor, then competence with a corkscrew could help. Get a Screwpull by Le Creuset (around £15 on Amazon), which will never fail to remove even the toughest corks. Demonstrate that the foil over the cork should be removed by running a knife around the moulding at the top of the bottle and then the cork pulled out cleanly. Stripping the capsule off or pulling the cork through the capsule will not give the right impression.

Now comes the tricky bit – show them how to drink. Start by swirling the glass and sticking your nose in to smell the aroma. They will laugh at this stage but with a bit of practice they will get the hang of it and in time you may notice that there is a slight hesitation between getting a glass of wine in their hands and knocking it back. This is the start of building a wine tasting vocabulary. They won’t immediately start using terms like “wheelbarrows of ugli fruit”, but they will start to notice the differences between basic wine flavours.

Teach them to read. Yes they may have passed their exams, but a wine label is new territory. Get them to notice the alcohol level on a bottle of wine which can be as low as 11 per cent and may be as high as 15 per cent. The difference this makes in terms of alcoholic effect is drastic.

A small glass of wine at 12.5per cent alcohol (125ml, a bottle shared between 6) has the same amount of alcohol as one and a half vodka shots. Choose a blockbuster Australian Shiraz at 14.5per cent and share it between just two students then each will have drunk the equivalent of five vodka shots. Alcohol can also pile on the weight with each small glass of wine containing around 100 calories.

In time most students end up giving small dinner parties in their shared flats and this is where the bank of Mum and Dad can be a real help. Instead of letting them spend their meagre allowance on supermarket cheapies, why not join a wine club, such as The Yorkshire Post Wine Club, or The Wine Society and send the impoverished students the occasional case of wine? These come with tasting notes and the arrival of a new selection box of wine could trigger a social gathering over a plate of pasta or chicken casserole.

But it isn’t just the students who need the occasional glass of wine. Mums might find the whole empty nest syndrome difficult to cope with, so if you find yourself sitting in the strangely tidy and quiet room which used to throb with music and dirty washing, then grab a glass of wine and a travel brochure and start planning your own gap year.