Rumpole of the Bailey (TV Series)

Rumpole and the Blind Tasting (1987)

Julian Curry: Claude Erskine-Brown

Quotes 

• [talking about the "Chateau Fleet Street" wine that Rumpole is drinking] 

  Horace Rumpole : Of course, there is another reason why I drink Pomeroy's plonk. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you drink enough of this stuff, you stand a good chance of getting blotto.

  Claude Erskine-Brown : [horrified]  Horace! Good heavens! The purpose of wine is not to get you blotto.

  Horace Rumpole : You astonish me.

  Claude Erskine-Brown : It's to taste sunlight trapped in a glass. To remember some green slope in Burgundy, or a village by the Gironde.

  Horace Rumpole : I dare say there is a patch of barren soil in some corner of a foreign field where the Fleet Street grapes struggle for existence. Probably somewhere between a cow-shed and a pissoir.