A barrel of laughs

ILAUGHED out loud at Maj Arbuthnott’s letter about his ‘not entirely undrinkable’ rosé (May 31). It reminded me of my late uncle, who, during the Second World War, found himself somewhere in Europe as cook to Sir Brian Horrocks and came across a barrel of red wine. The officers tried it and declared it undrinkable, so it went to the NCOS, who declared the same and it finished up with the other ranks. One of them was asked how they’d found the wine. ‘Just right sir,’ he replied. ‘Any better and we wouldn’t have got it; any worse and we couldn’t have drunk it.’ Dr David A. Harris, Oxfordshire