Do you remember a 1980s heavy-metal band called Hurricane James? The horrible title of their one record, You Know You Love It, You Slag? Their drummer with an improbable name, David Rocker? No, it wasn’t me in another incarnation. Even more implausibly, it was a Frenchman from Aix-en-Provence who dreamt of being a rock star. “I came for the music with long hair and a drum kit,” David told me. He stayed on after Hurricane James had blown away and now has a Russian wife, a daughter, a home in east London and another dream.

David is one of the brave people who risk all because of their love of wine. Just over a year ago, in a middle-aged, life-changing moment, he chucked in his job as a distribution manager (not quite a rock star) and turned to his roots. He formed a company, Lafayette’s Wines, built a website and poured all his savings into importing four palettes of Rhône and Provençal wine. That’s about 1,600 bottles. His timing could hardly have been worse. “My wife wasn’t too pleased, but I told her it was this or buying a sports car.”

His rather staid website hasn’t produced the sales he had hoped for, but London restaurants buy his deep, dark Bandols and creamily dry white Bellets. He takes his daughter across London to a (French) school in the morning and then sets off on his restaurant delivery run. Finance is tight. The margin per bottle is tiny — “I am not greedy” — and most restaurants don’t pay their bills for 30 days. One is talking of 90 days.

Compare his existence with the speculators who have just made a killing on 2008’s top-class claret. Last year’s weather in Bordeaux was so grim that — given the state of customers’ wallets — the wine trade arm-twisted the normally grasping top producers into cutting prices in advance for the 2008 vintage en primeur, the sale of wine before it is bottled.

Quality was better than expected, however. Robert Parker, the American guru whose dictums are revered (and reviled) around the world, gave astonishingly high scores to some top growths, triggering a rush to buy. Some prices almost doubled overnight, and speculators who had bought “cheaply” — we’re still talking hundreds of pounds a bottle — have reaped an instant profit, while the chateaux owners gnash their teeth.

For the price of a couple of cases of investment-grade bordeaux, David has just imported another 800 bottles of his own, much more interesting wines. Most of this is not cheap, either; but it’s for drinking, not trading. Will his dream survive? He’s planning to sit down in September and “see how it’s all going”.

LIQUID HUNCHES

Bellet, Collet de Bovis 2005 (£15.99)

An elegant, rare red made by a professor of Nissart (the Nice dialect) in hills behind the city. Unique local grape varieties give it both Provençal herbiness and a spicy, strawberry delicacy (lafayetteswines.co.uk).

Côtes du Rhône, Moulin du Pourpré 2005 (£6.99)

A dense, complex, southern Rhône red with a riot of dark fruit fighting for attention as though it were something much more expensive. It’s made by a single mother who took over the vineyard from her father (lafayetteswines.co.uk).

Château Les Ormes de Pez 2008 (£165 a case in bond)

You don’t have to spend a fortune for 2008 en primeur. The consensus among tasters in Bordeaux whose judgment I respect is that this is a belter and excellent value (londonfinewine.co.uk).

What are you drinking? Tell me at wine@sunday-times.co.uk

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