Noted satirist, the late Auberon Waugh (Bron), son of the great Evelyn, was a renown wine buff and bullshit detector.
Back in the 1980s he published Waugh On Wine which has just last month been reprinted, it consisted of his various wine reviews going back to the 1970s.
He once found himself in big trouble with British midwives and was accused of inciting racial hatred by the idiotic Race Relations Board, although these propositions were rightly rubbished by the Press Council.
This was for describing a particular Spanish red wine as evoking, “a bunch of dead chrysanthemums on the grave of a still‑born West Indian baby”.
Other Bron review comments; “the sole purpose of Rioja was that after a few glasses student nurses relinquished their virginity”. That’s certainly redundant but as said, dates to the 1970s. Today as we know, student nurses remove their pants without any inducement. Others include, “the aroma of ladies’ underwear”, “ribena flavoured beetroot soup”, a Californian wine had “the aroma of sanitised lavatory seats” and so it went.
All of this was vintage Bron, his great talent lying in insults and abuse for which he was hugely loved.
He was out here in the mid‑nineties to deliver a memorably funny address to the Press Club. I spent five nights with him knocking off the reds for which back then I had noted consumption credentials.
But although only 5 days older than me I knew he was doomed thanks to his 90 per day Rothmans unfiltered cigarettes habit, so his death a few years later came as no surprise.
