Cristal, please, and put it on expenses

Times have certainly changed. In the 1980s when I ran Majestic Wine, we supplied both the PM, Margaret Thatcher and the leader of the opposition, Neil Kinnock.

The wine that went to Number 10 was never more than £5 a bottle (after she had negotiated a discount on behalf of the taxpayer) and Mr. Kinnock had a regular supply of firkins of real ale. Both chose high-quality products at a very reasonable price - somewhat cheaper than the cache of fine wine that Boris found in the cupboard behind Ken's desk! 

Over the last few years, there have been numerous stories of excess in the fine wine world; the four bankers who ran up a wine bill (on expenses) for £34,000 at a St James's Street restaurant, for example.

A Hong Kong customer of mine once rang my office at 8am to tell me he was in a Jacuzzi in Kowloon with a beautiful girl, drinking Chateau Margaux 1990. I told him, rather bad temperedly, that this was a terrible waste. He disagreed.

In the Waldorf Astoria some years ago, an American oil baron ordered a bottle of 'the best Chateau Latour you have' from the sommelier. A bottle of Latour 1961 arrived (possibly the best Red Bordeaux ever made) and was opened. Our baron looked at it in disgust and sent it back shouting, "Don't give me something you haven't been able to sell for 40 years!"

The 'expense account' wines are, as you might expect, those with instantly recognisable names and a price to match. From Bordeaux: Chateaux Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Haut Brion, Mouton Rothschild, Petrus and Le Pin. And from Burgundy, the Domaine de La Romaine Conti wines.

Champagne features strongly, with Louis Roederer Cristal being the favoured among the Russian oligarchs, especially on the beaches of St Tropez (Cristal was once made exclusively for the Czars, so it's not surprising). Dom Perignon is what does it for the Americans and, for us Europeans, the rather more exclusive Krug.

All these wines have something in common: they are show-off labels that - while good to buy for investment - most of us would not buy to drink if it was our own money at stake. ·