I have good taste, but it doesn’t run to pebbles

From: Michael J Robinson, Park Lane, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.

I ENJOY wine and always enjoy Christine Austin’s wine column. her recent article (The Yorkshire Post, December 13) brought particular pleasure when I read that a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc came from a hillside where “the grapes ripen slowly, gathering flavour and a distinct crunchy, mineral style. Think herbs, citrus, passion fruit and pebbles rather than straightforward gooseberries”.

I have no wish to denigrate the splendid people who compile wine lists. Indeed I love all the wonderful descriptions of wine tastes – you know the sort of thing; picked during the autumnal equinox on the south slopes of Scagglethorpe with a simmering aftertaste of privet blossom – but to be invited to ‘think pebbles’ was an unexpected exhortation.

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As it happens, I do have a small collection of pebbles, picked up occasionally on holidays in distant lands, but I had never considered what they might taste like.

I know I shouldn’t have done, but I have to admit to having brought pebbles home from such disparate destinations as Alaska and New Zealand, plus a few of the variety of countries in between, but never until I read the Wine Column had I thought to taste them.