We mostly do wine with dinner-- Lady Rathdown and I prefer a good ordinary claret with most meals, although when we entertain we may set as many as four wines for the table. I am very much a champagne drinker (I really like the Roderer California vinyards' Hermitage), and always serve the bubbly before dinner as I think hard spirits tend to dull the pallet.

I am, on the whole rather underwhelmed by Virginia wines, with the exception of Barboursville Vinyards' Malvaxia Passito which is an absolutely first class dessert wine. Not being much of a wine snob I tend to buy wines that are pleasant to drink, and not too heavy. I do have a small cellar that will accommodate 288 bottles in 24 rather snug bins, and racks for an additional dozen or so bottles. At the present moment I've got four cases of wine in the bins, plus an assortment of about eight or ten bottles of wine given to us over the Christmas holidays. I always keep half a dozen bottles of champagne in the fridge-- just in case!