Lord Dunsany's Dean Spanley

A gentle tale of Edwardian spiritualism set in Imperial England where upper lips are always stiff and men from the Colonies are not entirely to be trusted. The perfect winter warmer, says Tom Woollen.

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A "Gentlemen's Champagne"

The Gentleman routinely imbibes himself with Pol Roger champagne, or any other prominent champagne that holds the royal warrant.

WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS A CIGAR-SMOKING PUFFBALL whose daily alcohol regime included sherry at breakfast, whisky at lunch, champagne at dinner and brandy before bed. Or so it has been reported. This may not be quite accurate for the official Churchill Centre states that he preferred beer at lunch and whisky during tea time, whilst before dinner there was sherry, then Champagne, brandy and port. He apparently enjoyed the occasional glass of hock at breakfast, and he would traditionally greet people in the morning with a sherry. Those close to him confide that he couldn't stand cocktails, apart from the "Papa Cocktail", a smidgen of Johnnie Walker covering the bottom of a tumbler, which was then filled with water and sipped throughout the morning according to his daughter. As one observer described it, it was more akin to mouthwash than a highball but that's how Winston liked his scotch and water. It was perhaps this very watered down concoction that gave the great man a seemingly bottomless capacity for drink-soaked endurance, and allowed him to fondly quip that "he had taken more out of alcohol than alcohol had taken out of him." In fact the contention that Churchill was in any way an "Alcohol Abuser" is pointedly debunked by the Churchill Centre as a myth, for no serious colleague had ever reported him the worse for drink. He was not an alcohol abuser per se, he was merely alcohol dependent.

As evidence of that dependency there was of course his famous declaration to the King of Saudi Arabia that his absolute rule of life required drinking before, during and after meals, though it was during mealtimes that Churchill did most of his heavy imbibing. There was also the observation that he drank two bottles of Pol Roger champagne a day, his favourite champagne house and the only sparkling wine that he would consume following the Second World War:

And, of course, there was Mme Odette Pol-Roger, a widow from 1963 until her death in 2000 aged 89, on whom - and on whose wines - Winston Churchill doted so much. Indeed, so smitten with her was Churchill that he named a racehorse after her and promised to visit her in Epernay: `Invite me during the vintage, and I'll press the grapes with my bare feet,' he declared. It is reckoned that in the last ten years of his life more than 500 cases of the stuff passed through his cellars.

So for those who cannot afford the silky smooth crispness of Dom Pérignon everyday, Pol Roger champagne is probably the next best thing. Its premium bottle, Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, is named after the gentleman who would tolerate no other. As a testament to its fine quality, the prominent champagne house also holds a Royal Warrant to supply the British Royal Family with cases of its very best, further enhancing Pol Roger's reputation as a "gentlemen's champagne".

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