Withnail director drank 200 bottles of fine wine in two weeks
May 9, 2008 By Oliver Styles
The director of cult comedy film Withnail & I drank 200 bottles of blue chip Bordeaux in just two weeks, he has revealed.
Bruce Robinson, who wrote and directed the 80s comedy film, bought the bottles from a closing hotel in Manchester in the late 60s during his career as an actor.
According to Robinson, the proprietor said the contents of the hotel cellar was 'muck'.
The 200 Bordeaux wines, from the 1945, '47, '53, '59, and '61 vintages, including Chateaux Beychevelle, Petrus and Margaux were bought for £200 (US$389, €252) by the director and a friend.
Robinson, talking at a recent Withnail & I renuion at London's British Film institute, said he had originally planned to take the wines to London to sell on at auction house Sothebys to, 'make some money'.
'We drank the lot in two weeks,' said Robinson. 'It was saveloy and chips with…shall we have the Beychevelle or Margaux?'
Wine features prominently in Withnail & I (pictured). The closing scene shows Richard E Grant's eponymous character Withnail taking swigs from a bottle of 1953 Margaux while reciting the soliloquy 'What a piece of work is a man', from Shakespeare's Hamlet, to the wolves in London zoo.
Have your say... To post your comment on this story, email us at news@decanter.com, making sure the relevant headline is in the subject field
A quick check of the calendar; hmm... no, it's not April 1st... Another non-Decanter story though.
This must be the result of your present survey regarding coverage of Bordeaux. Despite the results so far you obviously believe that there isn't nearly enough, since you chose to go with this bottom-of-the-barrel item (no pun intended).
The words that come to mind are: So what? Do you want to know what I did in the '80s? Of course not; but then again I'm not a cult film director.
Steven Drotos, Beamsville, Ontario, Canada
What a great story. The wine industry has enough snobs and it's very refreshing to see a publication such as Decanter not being afraid to show the amusing side of wine. What a shame others can't see it that way. Keep it up!
Fergus Stewart
Register on decanter.com absolutely free for news alerts delivered direct to your email inbox, and our fortnightly newsletter with advance notice of what’s coming up in Decanter magazine, offers, competitions and more.
PLUS registration is a one-stop shop for the Decanter magazine Archive and Decanter Fine Wine Tracker.
A quick check of the calendar; hmm... no, it's not April 1st... Another non-Decanter story though.
