“I ordered a glass of the only chardonnay available by the glass. It was $16 a glass. I later Googled the wine and found it could be bought for around $18 a bottle. Mark ups rule!” write wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

It was on Friday, May 24 that a friend and I saw the marvellously entertaining film The Taste of Things. 

Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel perform magnificently. Binoche plays a beautiful, but increasingly ill cook and Magimel her creative, gourmet lover who shows the recovering Binoche the epitome of care in the meal he dotingly prepares for her. 

This film affirms the centrality of love and good food and wine in a well lived life. 

My only carp was the overuse of the handheld camera which, while giving increased immediacy to many scenes, got in the way of contemplation of some of the wonderful scenery on display. 

Afterwards we decided to embrace some good food and wine ourselves, walking the stairs from Palace Electric to the Monster Kitchen Bar and Restaurant.

The restaurant is vegetarian and we shared some croquettes, patatas bravas and some edamame ordered from the bar menu. 

My friend didn’t want a drink as she was driving. But I said I would have a glass of chardonnay as International Chardonnay Day was celebrated on May 21 and that was close enough for me to raise a glass made from the Queen of Grapes. I later confirmed the date via worldchardonnayday.org, although another website said it was May 26. I care not which exact day or why it is celebrated: just like Cinderella when her photos failed to show up. Someday my prints will come! Until then just enjoy the wine. 

I ordered a glass of the Spring Seed Wine Four O’Clock chardonnay 2022, the only chardonnay available by the glass. It was $16 a glass. I later Googled the wine and found it could be bought for around $18 a bottle. Mark ups rule! 

It is an organic wine from McLaren Vale. It was young and fresh and in the style of chardonnays that have no butter or oak characteristics, present in the bold style that you get from say a Californian Mondavi Bourbon Barrel Aged Chardonnay 2022, which I have also recently tried. The Mondavi is an oak hit, almost abrasively so. The Spring Seed, however, has a lime-scented bouquet and a stone-fruit finish. It was pleasant but no showstopper. 

I explained to my friend that some chardonnays taste buttery because they undergo a process known as malolactic fermentation. This is where sharp malic acid is converted to softer, creamier lactic acid. 

But, I harrumphed, the process is not one of fermentation as yeast isn’t used; it’s a process where a special strain of bacteria eats the malic acid and produces lactic acid.

“In the 1970s” (whoops showing my age, I thought) “the taste of chardonnay was brassy, oak and butter belted you around the head and it had a reputation of giving you a hangover. That style is about as fashionable as bell bottoms these days.”

“Did you wear flares?” she asks.

“Yes, they were purple and I had high-heeled clogs,” I said, staring into the rapidly diminishing glass of new-style chardonnay. 

“Do you want to hear a ’70s lawyer joke?” I asked.

“Okay”, she responded.

Two lawyers walk into a pub. They order a couple of wines and take their sandwiches out of their briefcases and then they begin to eat them. Seeing this, the angry publican exclaims: “Excuse me, but you can’t eat your own sandwiches in here!” 

The two lawyers look at each other, shrug their shoulders, and then exchange sandwiches.

“Oh, dear,” she said as I finished the chardonnay.