Drugs are great. Don’t listen to those naysayers who offer hugs instead. Silly. Whoever heard of a hug that produced art, ideas, conversation and discovery? Some may have led to sex, sure, but then I reckon ecstasy wins on that count.

Of course, drugs kill people and ruin lives. So do guns, politicians, earthquakes, religion, airline food, ignorance, baseball-bats, well timed punches, badly timed racing drivers, and a host of animals. But none of these things gives us the sheer pleasure while hastening our demise that drugs do.

The touchy-feely love-inducing ecstasy; the motor-mouth making, I-swear-to-god-this-will-work-give-me-a-pen-I’m-going-to-be-famous lies of cocaine; the mind expanding “is that a three-headed Britney Spears hamburger?” vision creating powers of acid; the obviously dangerous, but curiously entrancing evils of heroine; the I-understand-the-universe-and-will-write-it-down-as-soon-as-I-get-something-to-eat joys of marijuana; the licking of frogs, the smoking of strange roots, the ingesting of reduced cacti, and a thousand other ways we like to get high. Getting a bit mashed, whether it is via a fat line, a big bong, or – and this is the cheapest – simply through the opium of the masses, is very normal thing. Don’t let the hugs for drugs people fool you, we all like getting a bit sideways.

And this is completely understandable; life, as we know, is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” To relax with your pipe of tobacco at the end of the day, your line of smack, big fat spliff, or tumbler of whiskey, it’s all about achieving the same thing – making life that little less nasty, helping you ignore its more brutal elements, and forgetting, for a moment, that before you know it, you’ll be pushing up daisies.

I am sure you see where this is going; it must be obvious by now that my favourite of all the drugs is wine. Some of you may want to correct me and suggest it is alcohol I mean, but no, I mean wine specifically. I am no scientist, and I have no idea why, but of all the ways to join the coot in his perpetual state, wine seems to be the best.

While all drinks have their time and place – and I wont refuse one that’s bought for me – to get on the wagon with, to saddle up the horse of half-seas-over, wine is my top choice. Brandy is too violent; whiskey too morose; beer too rowdy; gin too common; Pimms too English; Amarula too faux African, and so it goes. But wine is, for me, the goldilocks of alcoholic beverages. It loosens the tongue and oils the brain cogs. It can put you in a mood that is both argumentative and conciliatory, loving and acerbic, jovial and heated. Am I being somewhat whimsical in my view of wine as a drug? Perhaps. But in my experience there is no other that creates such perfect bon homie as that of wine.

These thoughts occurred to me – not for the first time – as I looked back on my last two weekends of wine. There was the Big Bottle Festival, a superb lunch with wino friends, a Cathy Marshall vertical tasting, and a tasting of Volnays that I was invited to. Of course the people at these events all had a common interest, but the good natured interactions, the back-slapping, smiles and free flow of conversation convinced me that the slow and steady consumption of wine is the best social lubrication possible.

Single drugs can have an array of consumption methods. Smoking, snorting, injecting, drinking, eating etc. For wine my preferred method is small sips, consistently over a long period of time. This lets the warm feeling of intoxication slowly waft over you, pulling upwardly at the sides of your mouth, and offering you a congenial view of the world without dulling your senses too much. The trick is to find this point and then manage it. Too many miss this moment of equilibrium and end up having protracted – and rather vulgar – conversations into the porcelain telephone.

But it is not just the intoxicative properties of wine that make it my favourite drug; it is also relatively cheap (although the further down the rabbit-hole you go, the more you are willing to pay), easily accessible, and most important of all, interesting. No other drug offers so many different flavours, textures and aromas on your way to getting pickled. And choice! My goodness you are spoiled for it. You can get sizzled on German Riesling, befuddled with a Californian Cabernet, or loaded with a Australian Shiraz. An Argentinean Malbec can get you pleasantly toasted, and with a Burgundy, elegantly wasted.

A brilliant, sociable, complex, tasty, interesting drug. No flashbacks, jippo-guts, steak knife Tuesdays, or deviated septums. No gangsters, gun-toting dealers or back alley deals. As drugs go, wine is a winner.

I was going to leave it there, but I thought I’d give some sort of disclaimer before the more sensitive of you start accusing me of promoting alcoholism, the dop system, killing babies, and finally – as internet comments go – accuse me of sleeping with somebody’s mother and simultaneously being gay. Of course drugs in excess are bad for you, and to live entirely under the influence is not advisable. Use these drugs to make your life better, don’t be silly and let them become a crutch.