Waugh on Wine to be republished

Auberon Waugh’s famous anthology on wine, with instructions for humiliating stingy hosts and matching German Riesling with pot, is to be republished for the first time in many years.

Featuring ‘Bron’ Waugh’s intermittent and frequently humorous writings on wine that featured in publications such as Tatler, The Spectator and Harper’s and Queen, the wit and wisdom of the writing is now considered a classic text (if no longer entirely very current when it comes to styles and regions).

Among Waugh’s various witticisms is the advice that, “…hosts that skimp on their wine should be exposed, ridiculed and humiliated”.

He also advises that aperitifs should be served to, “anesthetise the brain, drive out the worries and preoccupations of the day and prepare men and women for each other’s company.”

Meanwhile, in a rather modern twist, he also gives his preferred wine pairing with cannabis.

He writes: “For those readers that are still old-fashioned enough to smoke pot, the only wine I ever found that went well with it was Deinhart’s Hochheimer Konigin Victoria Beng Riesling Kabinett.”

First published in 1987, the book has been out of print for several decades but is being republished by Quartet Books with a new introduction by publisher Naim Attallah and illustrations by Private Eye’s co-founder, the late Willie Rushton.