It is the end of the working day and I am sipping a glass of Zinfandel. Believe me, after the day I've just had, I have earned it.

This morning I had to travel to somewhere relatively near London by train. Yes, it was very expensive, and yes the seats in our trains were made for one buttock, not two. I was getting near to my destination and my hands had become clammy, bathed in intimate body heat circulating in the hermetically sealed carriage. My clothes had started to become part of my skin, fused by the hot nylon seating. I was very irritable, exacerbated by the man nearby conducting loud business on his 'thebigiamPhone' (the Apple touch screen tapping is the real pandemic this country is suffering). To temper my mood I had already read all of the discarded freebie newspapers, and spent lots of energy avoiding the person next to me lolling on my shoulder.

Suddenly a breath of fresh air as an announcement fought above the hum of groped phones.

"Ladies and Gentlemen we will soon be approaching early....."

Unheard of, a train arriving before it is due. The pain of the journey was all but alleviated until I realised the next station was called Earley.

Finally, I arrived at my destination (late), and stopped at the newsagent to buy a real paper and some peppermint gum to dispel the stale coffee feeling in my mouth. While I was mildly concerned about killing the shop assistant with my perceived cone of death breath, she said..

"That's 78p ..why don't you buy a pack of five for £1.00, five packs are on offer"

Was my breath that bad?

I declined as I did not want five packs of gum. This did not go down well at all. There was disbelief on the assistants face. I had to explain that despite the offer I could not possibly eat five packs, and was not in the habit of cellaring it for a rainy day. A small queue of impatient commuters was developing and the pressure forced the assistant to put down the five pack and let me have what I wanted.

At the end of the long working day I popped into a supermarket for some food, on way the back to the station. More complications, this time bag related. I could not simply pay for the food before deciding on my bag. There almost seemed to be a different bag for every penny between 5 and 10 pence. No chance to try before you buy. I ended up going for the extravagant 'bag for life' (all of 10p), which is possibly the greatest misnomer of all time, or else I must be leading lots of parallel lives. Bizarrely the checkout person seemed impressed with my 10p extravagance when a lesser bag would have sufficed.

In this bag was the Zinfandel (Ravenswood Vintners Blend Zinfandel 2007) ready to be shaken and boiled on the train ride home, further more confusing its own sense of identity...

I will shortly be writing a note on the bottle in my tasting section, and elaborating on the indeterminate origins of Zinfandel.

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