Something for the weekend?

I defy you not to feel a discomfiting twinge of admiration for Gerard Depardieu, functioning alcoholic extraordinaire. The French actor, who owns a vineyard, has revealed that he drinks 14 bottles of wine a day. “In the morning, it starts at home with champagne or red wine before 10am,” he told So Film magazine. “Then again champagne. Then pastis, maybe half a bottle. Then food, accompanied by two bottles of wine. In the afternoon, champagne, beer and more pastis at around 5pm to finish off the bottle. Later on vodka and/or whisky.”

Despite this gargantuan thirst, Depardieu insists he is as fit as a fiddle and never gets drunk – “just a little pissed”. Even then, it’s easy enough to sober up. “All you need is a 10-minute nap and voilà, a slurp of rosé wine and I feel as fresh as a daisy.”

As good a drinker as I am, I still aspire to this sort of greatness.

This evening I will need something to go with chargrilled rump steak with garlicky crushed potatoes, green beans, roast beetroot and horseradish cream, the interwebs telling me that is the meal best matched with what is left of my weekly veg box.

I think fourteen bottles of, say, Chilean Malbec should fit the bill very nicely.