My Life In Booze: Matthew Jukes

People often ask how much I drink. And the honest answer is not as much as you might think. I don't drink on my own – I find it boring because I think wine is to be shared and discussed. It's a kind of social glue, which sticks you together while you’re enjoying a glass or bottle of wine. I only tend to drink with friends and my wife when we’re out and about, and I very rarely drink without food.
 
Now I’m in my mid-50s, I tend to drink three days a week and have four days off. On those three days, I might have a bottle with the wife watching Netflix. I am very spoiled because I have thousands of bottles sent to me to taste, so if I want to have a little sip of something, it’s very easy to do that. Last night, I went out with a friend to a Soho literary club called The Academy. We drank two bottles between us, because they were very special, serious bottles ­– we brought one each – but that was a bit of a one-off. It was really civilised and very slow paced with a starter, main course and cheese – and tonnes of water. That's about as deep as I go these days.
 
Like everybody, I’ve got to get up in the morning. I was at the hygienist at 8:30 this morning – getting rid of the wine stains on my teeth – and I’ve had back-to-back meetings since. You’ve just got to stay sharp these days. It's funny how things have changed. In the old days, everyone would call you a hero if you’d had a few sherbets in the middle of the week. There’d be back-slapping and you’d feel like the big man about town. Now people look at you like you’re an idiot who’s let themselves down. The attitude has shifted so much that if you’ve got a midweek hangover, it's not cool – it's actually a bit juvenile.

Only going alcohol free in January is as crazy as only drinking rosé in the summer. When you're sitting in an Indian restaurant and everyone's ordered a different dish and you're wondering what on earth to drink, rosé is the absolute best option because it covers all bases. Same with Chinese food. If you’re in the depths of winter and there are 12 dishes in the middle of the table, don’t feel like you have to order a bottle of red just because it’s dark outside.

I still remember my first drink. When I was a little boy, we lived in Belgium. My dad had a job in Brussels and used to entertain people at home instead of going to restaurants. My mum became quite a good cook, while my dad read wine books and tried to become immediately sophisticated. I remember as a seven-year-old boy – in my slippers, dressing gown and pyjamas after a bath – standing in the hallway of the house and welcoming important businessmen who’d flown over from America with a glass of Veuve Clicquot. Later, I poured out a German riesling, then a Volnay from Burgundy – and I found out that Volnay was a village, not a grape. I remember pouring these three different wines, and I was allowed to sip them, and thinking how interesting it was that there was a bit of geography involved. I went a bit Boy Scout and got the atlas out, and thought it was fascinating you could have three very different drinks from around the world. It made me super curious about wine.

At school and university, beer was very much in vogue because I was a rugby boy. So it was all about beer for a few years then, when beer became a bit too much, I went straight back to wine because I started working in the industry when I was 19.

In the mid-90s I owned a wine bar on the Fulham Road with the late, legendary wine merchant Hilary Gibbs. It was called The Crescent and was the most famous wine bar in the country for about three or four years. It was a modern, beautiful wine bar, not an old pub with sawdust on the floor. All the Chelsea types – and even Madonna, Kylie and fashion designer Ben di Lisi – used to come in. It was a really beautiful moment.

When we shut the bar, Stella McCartney’s shop took over the site. At the time, I wondered where the next wine bar was going to pop up. That was almost 25 years ago and there have been no specialist wine bars since. We were a wine bar that had snacky food like spring rolls or BLTs – it wasn't about the food, it was about the wine. There are plenty of really interesting wine lists in small neighbourhood restaurants I find great fun to go to, but they're simply not wine bars.

If you want a great experience in a place where food isn't the driver, there’s one bar in Shepherd’s Bush called Albertine. I always go for bottle of wine and a nice simple plate, like chicken liver pate, ahead of a concert at the Empire. I'm always really excited about the wine selection – they're not wines I know very well, as the team has got quite eclectic taste. I'm a chap who tastes 40,000 different bottles a year, and at Albertine I'm completely in the hands of the waiting staff. It’s such a beautiful experience to be a complete punter again rather than a wine expert. It’s very natural, it’s not expensive and it’s a wonderful slice of what wine bars used to be.

My top tip for choosing wine in a restaurant is simply to ask the sommelier. They know the list better than you do and they’ll have spotted which dishes you've ordered. Don’t ever be shy about saying what your budget is. I wrote the wine list at Bibendum for 26 years. One day, two blokes walked in, one looking pretty shabby, the other in shorts and trainers. They ordered a bottle of Krug, Latour 29, and a bottle of 1899 Château Suduiraut sauternes. It was the biggest wine bill we’d ever seen. Turns out, they were the owners of the two American football teams who’d just played at Wembley and were on their way to the airport. If you’d tried to guess what budget they had, you might have said £50.

Wine temperature is really important. Don't overchill whites because the flavour gets knocked out. And for god's sake, don't serve reds warm. So many people get them up to room temperature, but arguably that's a bit too warm for a nice gentle red wine. Use the fridge if you want to just take the edge off a red that feels a bit warm to the touch – or stick it outside the back door.

The best hangover cure I have is drinking a Jukes 1 topped up with sparkling water the day after. The best thing to avoid hangovers altogether is following the classic advice of drinking a glass of water for every glass of wine you drink the night before. When you're drinking wine, it’s easy to forget the water sitting there on the table waving at you. Then in the morning, if you feel a little rusty, seriously – try Jukes 1 in sparkling water and you’ll feel like an Olympian.