Not in a grand, swirling, tasting-note sort of way. More in the everyday sense — knowing where the corkscrew is at all times, having a suspiciously flexible definition of “a glass”, and believing that wine doesn’t need an occasion so much as a moment.

Wine with food, without food, with friends, stretched out over long evenings. Wine alone, with a good book and absolutely no agenda.

We’ve drunk bottles that behaved impeccably and others that didn’t. Old World, New World, and the occasional “this tastes better because the view is spectacular” wine — including the kind enjoyed on small Greek islands, lightly chilled, occasionally iced, and never over-analysed.

Somewhere along the line, wine quietly made its way onto our café menu too. And what we noticed was this: people didn’t need permission. Glasses appeared naturally, at whatever hour felt right. Morning, noon or drifting gently into evening. No fuss. No judgement.

These Secret Wine Confessions are not reviews, nor recommendations and certainly not instructions. They’re simply honest notes about bottles we’ve enjoyed — at home, at the café, on Exmoor, elsewhere — exactly when and how we felt like drinking them.

And if any of it feels familiar… well, you’re among friends.