Epiphany is my favourite date on the Church calendar. I know I should have posted this last Sunday, but work got in the way, and when work calls, I must answer.

A lovely word, Epiphany. It’s from the Greek, epiphaneia, meaning manifestation or striking appearance, and of course refers to the revelation of the Christ Child to the shepherds and the wise men. I always found the hymns at this time of year particularly moving; Brightest and best of the sons of the morning; As with gladness men of old; The people that in darkness sat; and so on.

When they eventually ask me to go on Desert Island Discs, there is one piece of music that has remained on my 8 record list since I first compiled it 40 years ago. It is the Epiphany carol Three Kings, by Peter Cornelius, above the chorale How brightly shines the morning star, based on Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Philip Nicolai. I cannot hear it without crying. When the trebles hit “Praise, o praise such love o’erflowing” at the end the tears burst out of my eyes. They are tears of joy, not sadness. I cannot believe the human voice has created anything more beautiful.

Anyway, I was going to write about my own personal epiphanies. Thomas de Quincy, in Confessions of an English Opium Eater, is credited with the first secular use of the word to describe his discovery of opium, and I have dragged the standard further down by coining the new word epifantastic (or perhaps epiphantastic) to describe ecstatic moments of revelation in my life, almost all of which, I’m sorry to admit, concern food and drink.

Apricots, bought from a stall at the side of the road in the Auvergne, in July 1986. Never have I tasted such stunning and subtle flavour.

Cheddar cheese, bought from Camisa in Old Compton Street and eaten with my Dutch friend Wim in the round window in Harlech. Flaky, crumbly, salty, tangy.

Filthy dirty carrots bought from the run down greengrocers in Chapel Street, Porthmadog. Nothing but sublime taste and texture.

Me in a foul mood, and a late night bottle of white wine in a restaurant in Condrieu. It was a bottle of Chateau Grillet at the Hostellerie du Beau Rivage. We booked the room two weeks earlier, turned up tired and hungry, cleaned up and went down to dinner, to be told the restaurant was full — “Mais M’sieur ‘as not berked a table!” They finally fed us at 10:30 after I’d planned to torch the place, but one sip of the Ch. Grillet and all my cares flew away. Astounding — and never ever as good since, but now Viognier is as common as muck.

A few, but not many, other moments. Too many, and they wouldn’t be epiphantastic.

And of course the sherry I had on Christmas Day — see my earlier blog posting.

Won, won, wonderful!

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