I was doing a charity wine debate thing for the British Heart Foundation the other day when Malcolm Gluck, the Superplonk fellow, suddenly asked me, "Why do restaurant critics never write about the wine?" "If you read my reviews," I replied, "you'd know I don't write about the food, either." Ha ha. What a witty fellow I am. So self-deprecating. So at ease with my mastery of my trade that I will happily mock myself in order to bring the house down with a top gag.

But then I thought, "Hmm, the man may have a point" (I didn't say this, of course; that's not how debates work). I do tell you if there's a good (by which I usually mean "long") list of wines by the glass, I've applauded the introduction of 250ml carafes, which allow you to drink something better than average without spunking a heap of cash and getting boggle-eyed hammered (although I usually do both), and I sometimes mention a good-value bottle I've had pointed out by a sommelier. But that's about it.

So after the debate I had a word with Malcolm about how he thought I might introduce more wine info into my column, and he suggested we discuss the matter over dinner at the Frontline in Paddington. Asked by its owner a couple of years ago to do the wine list, he said he would do it only if, instead of the standard 300 per cent restaurant mark-up, a flat charge of £10 was added to each bottle, regardless of price.

The result, he says, is that there are wines on the list at £13 a bottle which, if you could find something similar in an off-licence, would cost you £50. He cites a 2002 Scotchman's Hill chardonnay from Australia. And I say, OK, I'll come.

The one drag is that the Frontline is the open-to-the-public restaurant of the Frontline Club for war reporters, and, one or two good friends apart, I have never been a great fan of the species. They tend to be vainglorious bores, believing that the whiff of death and putrefaction in faraway places can make a boring anecdote lively, or that having seen a lot of terrible stuff can make a naturally tedious old soak in some way interesting. They do an important job, but so do dentists.

Still, there weren't any war correspondents in when Gluck and I arrived (you could tell because everyone was smiling, happily married and reasonably sober), and he immediately ordered a half-bottle of Von Schubert Maximin Grünhauser Abtsberg Riesling Auslese 1995 (£24), mostly to help him get over what he had felt were three shocking Rieslings at the BHF tasting.

It was low in alcohol (8 per cent) and not at all sticky. Like a chilled version of mummy's bedtime lemon and honey when you're feeling peaky. But clean and crisp. Lovely.

Gluck's wine list begins with a diatribe against conventional restaurant mark-ups and an apology for the list's ambition and prolixity. There is an index pointing you towards such things as "sauvignon blancs without the yawn", "four classy clarets from St Emilion" and "underdogs — wines from not-yet hugely famous grapes". There is a one-page-only condensed "list for wine-list haters" and then we're into 14 pages of really exciting wine of extraordinary value, mostly between £20 and £40, described in a style that is unpretentious without being so unpretentious that you want to kneel on the author's chest and beat him with a brick, as one does with so many garglehacks these days.

We had a glass each of the aforementioned Scotchman's Hill. It was very dark gold, I guess because it was older than you normally see Aussie chardonnays and, while vaguely reminiscent of meursault, tasted mostly of sweetcorn.

"Exactly!" said Gluck, gleefully. "Tinned sweetcorn!" And now that I knew that this was a good thing, I enjoyed it very much.

Then, scanning his list, Malcolm asked me what sort of red wine I usually like. Tricky. I like claret, for example. But what if he says, "Mostly cabernet sauvignon or mostly merlot?" I might reply, "Mostly merlot", and he might say, "Any favourites?" And I might then accidentally choose a mostly cabernet one, and then he'd laugh and stand on a chair and shout, "Get this everybody, Coren thinks the Château Singes-Qui-Se-Capitulent-En-Mangeant-Du-Fromage is mostly merlot!" And everyone would laugh and... "I know!" he said, interrupting my reverie. "As your girlfriend is a barrister, we'll have a wine made by a female lawyer, in honour of absent friends." So we had a bottle of Domaine Hauvette Côteaux des Baux, 2000 (£32), from Provence. It's a grenache, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, which Gluck's notes said tasted of burned cocoa, dry plums, liquorice and Brazil nuts. But I thought it tasted of liver. And he rather agreed. As such, it went very well with the faggot-and-peas we had both ordered.

They were good, honest, proper pig faggots. Nice and tangy and beautifully encased in a single layer of caul which provided a little grist to the teeth without the chewiness a multi-wrapped faggot can have.

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