Paula Goddard

Put away your corkscrew, wine is available on tap. Look around the wine section of your average supermarket and you’ll see 800 different bottles and 30 wineboxes. Clearly more people buy wine in bottles but they are missing out on the great advantage of buying wine in 3-litre boxes - no corkscrew is required. To pour a glass of wine all you need do is push open a plastic tap.

James Pimm, owner of an oyster bar in Victorian London, designed his Original drink to wash down the oysters. This house blend, known as a ‘cup’, included ingredients common to many bars or pubs - gin, soda, lemon, sugar, quinine and spices. What these ‘spices’ actually are is still a trade secret, supposedly known to only six people, but probably includes Seville (bitter) orange peel, cloves and cinnamon; giving Pimm’s Original Cup a taste of orange, Madiera cake and milk chocolate.

My new weekly wine and drink column Drink Up... With Paula Goddard for Sky’s website livingit.com is now live. You can already read my thoughts on rosé, red and elderflower wines; matching wines with barbecued food and salad; champagne and strawberries , golfers’ wines , wineboxes and Pimm’s .  Each week I’ll be looking at a topical wine issue and recommending wines to try.

The Open’s trophy winners plaque is getting rather crowded. July 22 will see the 135th name engraved on the silver Claret Jug as the last hole is being played at Carnoustie, Scotland. After a gap of five years since his last win, I’m hoping that name is Ernie Els. Should the 37-year old South African come first he’ll be able to put the Claret Jug to the use it was intended - serving claret wine from it. Ernie’s own South African version of French claret, made at his 72-hectare Stellenbosch vineyards, would be a fitting choice.

Engelbrecht-Els estates grow the ‘classic’ claret grapes of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc and Malbec. Once picked the grapes are crushed before being micro-vinified – each grape type is kept separate and fermented individually.