Vanilla Wine - Third Bottle (2), 30th January 2016

"I remember this bottle as slightly disappointing," I told Claire after revealing that our Saturday night bottle would be Vanilla wine.

"I remember it being vastly disappointing," she replied.

It is true that it wasn't my greatest. For the first time, though, I got a vanilla hit as the initial taste. And like many poor wines, once I had got used to the flavour (cloying, dull), the second and subsequent glasses were better.

We drank it after a visit from John, Jayne, Alwin and Lucas - it has been a couple of years since we last saw them, and the boys are delightful. We pressed a postcard for Rydal into their hands - Lucas plays the trombone - and they might give it a go.

When typing "cloying dull" into Google Image Search, I got this!