Double dipping on donations.

We are a generous household and give away more money per capita than anyone else in Australia.

A bold call, but before you get all uppity about our one-upmanship, admittedly we start from a very low capita, and we spend more than we earn, like most people.

Perhaps our biggest donation is to the energy sector. Ms L. not only doesn’t have an off switch

Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2021, $?? Viognier is one of the world’s truly interesting grapes no matter how it’s made. However when well made it is a delight and you wonder should we make another donation to the cause? 9.3/10.

Yalumba Eden Valley The Virgilius Viognier 2020, $???. Then when Viognier so to speak, and we can tell where she’s been in the house by the trail of light, but any of them with dimmer switches are cranked right up to 11.

True, we never lose anything, and we seldom bump into stuff although it does somewhat diminish the mood of, well, pretty much everything, but as a consequence we are subsidising other households and energy industry big wigs are is very well made, you wonder is there any left, either in the bottle or the bottle shop. There’s more going on in this than in our fridge making it the perfect wine to impress wine-lovers and people called Virgil. 9.7/10.

McWilliams Canberra District

‘Eliza Jane’Shiraz 2018, $100. That’s getting bigger wigs every day from our generosity so there’s no need for them to raise prices as a result.

Contributing to this, Ms L. has been known to leave the fridge door open until not only the warning beep has ceased but the fridge turns itself off thinking Elvis has left the building. He has not and is standing barely two metres away.

Ms L. is what you might call a cold frog so needs a hair dryer as well as the a lot of money to donate to Canberra, so declare it, but there is something about fash wine from Canberra.

This is a David Pocock wine, full of goodness and poise, impressive without trying to impress, and you wish there was more of it. 9.6/10.

McWilliams Tumbarumba ‘1877’ Chardonnay 2022, bar heater in the bathroom after April 1, and that’s not a joke.

Like many people we also give generously to TV subscription services. Few are utilised, some never, but it’s important we keep them lest there’s another blockbuster like the one that hooked us in the frst place.

Supermarkets are big recipients of our largesse. Ms L. can’t resist a bargain such as a 10kg bag of potatoes with tomorrow’s

$80. It’s a sign of the times that with expensive chardonnays nowadays they clearly haven’t wasted all that money on oak alone. Very well rounded as are our donations to various causes. 9.5/10.

Barratt Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills) ‘Uley Vineyard’ Pinot Noir 2022, $44. It’s funny how different regions expiry date, surely we can utilise them…if not actually eat them. Same with that $70 cheese that we never liked anyway when it’s reduced to $1.

Perhaps our most generous offering is to opshops.

Ms L. frequently provides an entirely new (old) wardrobe for me, admittedly sorely needed, but there’s only so many illftting shoes and shirts that a man can bear, let alone produce such vastly different pinots. This one is so light (12.5 per cent) it could foat away but astonishingly has ample character to keep itself (and you) grounded. 9.5/10.

Barratt Piccadilly Valley (Adelaide Hills) ‘Uley Vineyard’ Chardonnay 2022, $39. Having ridden motorcycles through

Max Crus

wear, so 98 per cent of them go straight back to Vinnies who I’m pretty sure don’t give refunds - a double donation!

As is common in Australia, we reserve our greatest generosity for the alcohol industry…and the recycling industry, again a double donation.

It’s the least we can do. Here’s what we got for our donation this week :

Piccadilly in the Adelaide Hills a million times, I am embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know it was a Valley, but you can’t have hills without them I guess. Smart and suitably sophisticated chardonnay for a relatively modest donation. 9.4/10.