Didsbury Wine Club Christmas Dinner at the Grosvenor Casino, in which I eat, drink and make like Sharon Stone

Ah - the Christmas party. Absolutely rife at this time of year, and probably anticipated with roughly equal measures of excitement and dread: if you are lucky enough to get on really well with your colleagues, like I do, and go to a really lovely venue, like we did (Whim Wham Cafe on Whitworth Street if you're interested), then the Christmas party is a thing of much joy. Others are less fortunate, however - I don't have to look too far afield to spot a man who recently spent several torturous hours in Revolution bar on a Friday night, largely thanks to the fact that his work do had been organised by someone approximately half his age. Indeed, you can't move in Manchester at the moment without falling over (often literally) an overexcited party of people wearing ill-fitting sparkly clothing and believing they are Mariah Carey: as Band Aid so chillingly prophesised, it is indeed a world of dread and fear out there.

Much better, then, to attend a Christmas party in the company of people with whom you share a natural affinity, as witnessed at the Didsbury Wine Club Christmas Dinner at the Grosvenor Casino on Wednesday night. I have spoken fondly of this merry band of imbibers in previous posts - they meet monthly to sample various wines and nibble daintily on canapes under the tutelage of Omar, David and Kate in different Didsbury locations - but this was my first experience of the DWC Christmas shebang; and to my surprise, considering the night consisted of wine, food and free bets, I found it was right up my street.

We begin the night with a welcome warmer in the shape of David's own-recipe mulled wine, made using a light, fresh red with the addition of muscavado syrup, cinnamon bark and - apparently this is what makes all the difference - a few bay leaves. The wines for Didsbury Wine Club are usually supplied by West Didsbury's Reserve Wines, but everything tonight has been purchased from the nation's favourite supermarkets, in order to prove that high-street bargains are plentiful. Indeed, the Tesco Beaujolais that accompanies our starter of venison pate is most acceptable - the lighter, flintier brother of the better known Pinot Noir grape, this is fresh, gluggable and (best of all) currently on offer at £7.99. It is a brave but effective foil to the coarse meatiness of the pate; in fact, the whole thing briefly transports me back to Paris in August, where I lived on pate and Beaujolais for three days and then made the mistake of weighing myself when I got home.

*hides scales, to be brought out again mid-January, or perhaps never*

Next up is the fish course, a magnificently retro affair consisting of yellow fin sole stuffed with crab meat and served with parsley sauce. This is served with my favourite wine of the night - the Las Moras Pacha-Mama Torrontes, all the way from Argentina, or, more locally, the Co-Op for a frankly astonishing £6.99. I am not really a lover of white wine, but this is a revelation - it has sweet lychee notes jostling alongside the crisper, drier tones of elderflower, and it cuts through the richness of the fish dish perfectly. Pleasingly, this new wine discovery makes me feel I have learned something, and can mark the whole evening down as "educational"
*underlines this in notepad*

The main course is a rib-eye steak with peppercorn sauce, accompanied by a French Malbec from Tesco. I am normally very partial to Malbec, but this wine is the only disappointment of the night for me - I find it rather vinegary, and a touch harsh on the throat. Omar encourages us to try it with the food and it DOES taste much better after a mouthful of lovely rare steak; still, I won't be buying this one. The wine train immediately gets back on course with the next offering though - the perky French Gewurztraminer that arrives alongside our dessert of lemon tart is honeyed enough to cope with the food pairing but has none of that cloying sweetness that puts me off of more traditional dessert wines. An inspired choice this one, and another wine I shall be buying (£8.99 from M & S if you wish to do likewise).

A shot of Baileys comes and goes (I don't like Baileys, Mr Liz does - I shan't spoil the plot line for you), and then it's time to grab our final wine of the night (a £9.99 Prosecco from M & S - I am already familiar with its work, and have a bottle of it in the fridge as we speak) and hit the gaming tables. The casino have laid on a "how to play session" which we have attended before, and a free £5 bet is also included in the Christmas Dinner ticket price - I treble mine at the Blackjack table before I remember it is a school night and I am not ACTUALLY Sharon Stone (too sturdily clad, for one thing) and go to cash in my winnings. Grosvenor Didsbury is a good place to go if you fancy a quick flutter but are a little intimidated by the thought of visiting a casino - the staff are lovely, and happy to explain things to you slowly and patiently; the food served in the restaurant is also far better than you might expect - we very much enjoy our four courses, although are a little surprised when great dishes of sprouts and roast potatoes appear to accompany the dainty little fish course pictured earlier. Still, never one to turn down a sprout opportunity.

Excess sproutage aside, if you live locally it's well worth getting involved with the Didsbury Wine Club, or one of their other outposts in Chorlton, Hale or Manchester. They are really friendly, enthusiastic people who are in it for the love of it rather than the money - the six wines, four courses, shot of Baileys and £5 bet come in at a total cost per head of just £35, and I honestly think that Omar might cry a little when I tell him I am going to buy some of the Torrontes. And remember, it's all *checks notepad* EDUCATIONAL, so even if you're planning a dry January, you can attend the Wine Club with a clear conscience (sort of). And me? I'm off to blow my £15 winnings on a couple of bottles of wine - see you all in January.

Didsbury Wine Club's November Gathering - Cheese and Wine at The Albert Club

There are many, many things that have failed to stand the test of time. That net-lined puffball skirt, for instance, that I spotted on a member of Bananarama c. 1986 and cried and cried for - fortunately my mother knew better, and refused to buy me something so clearly, hideously temporal. But then again, there are some things that simply do not date; take the cheese and wine party, for example. In my head this thrilling food and drink combo is most clearly associated with the 1970s: I suspect I may be thinking of an episode of The Good Life, in which Margot is perhaps wearing some kind of long, satiny dress and handing round pieces of cheese on sticks before Tom and Barbara probably come in wearing dungarees and smelling of pigs.

This may then explain why I was so ridiculously excited to find that this month's outing for the Didsbury Wine Club was to be - *Margot-inspired gasp* - a cheese and wine night. If you've not come across this laudable club before, it is essentially a group of nice, sociable people with a permanent, insatiable sort of thirst, who gather together on a regular basis under the friendly tutelage of Omar, David and Kate (who is new to the team, and has come all the way from California just to have wine with us) to try a range of wines in various locations across Didsbury. This month it was the turn of The Albert Club on Old Lansdowne Road, previously best known to me as the host of a splendid annual beer festival but now forever etched into my memory as the place I went to a cheese and wine party, on a dance floor, behind a curtain.

Anyway, this is what we had, with all wines - as ever - available from West Didsbury's Reserve Wines:

1- Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2011: I am definitely more of a red wine person, but this is lovely - as well as the familiar Sauvignon notes of melon and pineapple, this has a deeper, richer, more complex flavour. I comment to Mr Liz that I feel it is vaguely reminiscent of a good Chardonnay, BEFORE being told that 10% of the wine is oak aged in barrels - this time (this ONE time), my *knowledgeable wine face* actually turns out to be a *knowledgeable, accurate, TRIUMPHANT wine face*.

2- Chateau Lucas, Lussac St. Emilion 2008: the grapes for this French wine - a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon - receive constant sun, and it shows in the rich warmth and creamy finish of this highly suppable offering. Even better, it is offered alongside a large platter of a perkily firm cheese that has been bathed twice in Spanish red wine, a custom I plan to adopt myself prior to particularly special occasions.

3- Tabali Reserve Pinot Noir 2011: I love Pinot Noir, and this is no disappointment - this Chilean wine is made by a company that believes in old-school values, hand-picking all the grapes and oak-ageing 20% of them, and has a sultry, smoky taste. The cool night-time climate in the Chilean valleys means that the fruit takes longer to ripen, leading to thicker skins and a drier finish, and the poor soil quality results in a light, mineral flavour. There is no cheese with this wine, but David explains that we are using it as a palate cleanser due to its light, dry qualities; I consider this a reasonable answer, and reluctantly withdraw the angry, cheeseless tantrum that had been brewing. I also briefly consider that it may be some form of punishment implemented by Omar as retribution for the fact that when he asks us to try cheese two with and without the cheese, it transpires that everyone has in fact already eaten all their cheese, the very second it appeared.

4- Pulenta Estate, La Flor Malbec 2011: oh my - the high altitude of Mendoza in Argentina leads to big, fat, juicy grapes, which in turn leads to big, fat, juicy, wine-stained faces, for this is delicious, particularly as it is served with one of my favourite cheeses - Burt's Blue from Altrincham. This is my new favourite combination-for-life, and added to the fact that the cheesy platters also contain fresh figs, there is a serious chance that I may weep tears of sheer food joy.

5- Juan Gil 4 Meses 2011: last up is a real big-hitter - an Old World wine made from 100% Monastrell grape, but in a New World style that results in a wine clocking in at 15% ABV but remaining seriously drinkable. This is another great pairing, partnered with an 18-month-matured French Comté that perfectly complements the hefty swagger of the wine.

Amongst all this quaffing and scoffing, there is time for a quick cheesy joke competition (which is won by a lady who tells a great joke about the best cheese for hiding a horse), and much informal chat and erudition from the wine team. All in all, the night is pretty much perfect, and offers ludicrous value at £15 a head for frankly vast quantities of excellent food and drink and really lovely company. Obviously, for this to have been done properly, the cheese sticks should really have been served poking becomingly from an orange dressed up in tin foil to resemble a hedgehog, but you can't have everything - I shall offer this expert feedback so that this small glitch may be corrected next time...

- Find out more about the Didsbury Wine Club (and their new sister club in Chorlton) by visiting their website here - and don't forget to nake the point about the cheesy hedgehog. All cheeses were supplied by The Cheese Hamlet in Didsbury Village.