Whitehall is unlikely to be a hive of activity on May 5, but one small corner will be diligently ploughing on with its work regardless of the impending election. With admirable sang froid, the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine is also steadfastly ignoring reports of its imminent demise.

Embarrassed, perhaps, by the £6,000 bill for wines for the G20 London summit on the global economic crisis, Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, singled out the body last December as among the first to be sacrificed to reduce the deficit.

As minutes of its quarterly meetings obtained by The Times reveal, however, the committee appears determined to soldier on. Less than a week after Mr Byrne earmarked it for oblivion the body “regretted the manner in which the matter had been raised and the lack of consultation” before agreeing to establish how the body “would continue its work”.

At an annual cost to the taxpayer of about £10,000, Sir David Wright, a former ambassador, oversees the four masters of wine who decide which vintages the taxpayer should add to the 37,000 bottles of wines and spirits in a cellar worth about £2.5 million.

For its 245th meeting on the eve of the likely polling date, for example, the committee is to convene in its usual room within the grandeur of Lancaster House to taste a selection of white burgundies from the 2007 and 2008 vintages.

The need to replenish is pressing: at the 243rd meeting a stock review showed the “high volume of white burgundies being used” at official functions, which included a Christmas dinner for Foreign Office ministers.

It would be quite wrong to suggest that the body is insensible to public opinion of the tax-funded cellar. At its December meeting, members asked themselves whether they “should consider buying less wine during the recession”. After a brief discussion it was agreed “that the overriding reasons to purchase wines should be the requirements of the cellar, quality and value for money” but that “potential public perception ... should be legitimately part of the decisionmaking process”.

There are, however, limits. When Gillian Merron, then the Foreign Office minister responsible for the advisory body, suggested that the quango buy Fairtrade wine from Chile, it listened politely (before inviting her to join a tasting of vintage champagne). The resulting experiment was not a success. “The committee tasted a selection of red and white ‘Fairtrade’ wines,” it recorded in the minutes for last August’s meeting. “None was of a sufficient quality for the committee to recommend their purchase.”

Happily, the tasting for German and Alsace whites and Rhône reds did result in some firm commendations. Mystery surrounds the Croft 1985, however. Item 1883 in the minutes of the December 2009 meeting hints that all may not be well with the vintage, but an official censor has excised details relating to a request to retaste it.

Item 1886 records that the committee tasted the 2006 red bordeaux and item 1887 that it was “joined for lunch by the Prime Minister’s Foreign Policy Adviser, Mr Simon McDonald, and by the Director of Protocol, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr Simon Martin”.

There being no other business, the meeting concluded until May 5.