Columnists love December and January. It gives them the opportunity to write about the “10 best Wines/Cars/Movies/dancing cat videos of the year” and the always fun “Top 10 things to watch out for in 2013”, or the even better “5 wine resolutions for the New Year.”

I reckon this is because columnists get off on telling you what to do.

I am going to join in the tradition, but not because I want to. I have been called to.

Yes indeed, the God of wine – Bacchus – called me on New Year’s Day for a talking to atop the rather benign Bottellery Hills. He gave me six commandments to give to you. Not 10, because Bacchus is a bit lazy; drinking, carousing and inspiring all sorts of hedonistic endeavors are far more his style. So listen carefully young vinous acolytes, or older red nosed lifetime followers and imbibers, I have ascended the Bottellery Hills and have spoken with Bacchus for a whole afternoon and night. I have nursed the resulting hangover for a few weeks, and am now ready to give you the God’s Commandments for 2013.

Look, they get a bit contradictory at times, but who is going to argue with a god? Especially this one. Also, he was pissed as a lord from the start.

THOU SHALT HONOUR THY GLASSWARE [WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY NOT GIVING A TOSS]

The Almighty Bacchus was at pains to point out that glassware was almost as important as the bottle of wine itself; that thin, non-lipped rims, good crystal, and sparklingly clean glasses (with no hint of soap residue) would make for a far better drinking experience. He said that the shape of the glass is paramount. He told me in a voice that seemed to combine the deep timbered tone of an opera singer with the gruff, gravelly texture of Tom Waits:

“Harry, your glass is a vessel. Take that vessel on a journey to the very edges of wine.”

I didn’t understand him either, and he passed out for an hour after this, so I am not sure how important it is.

I also think I should point out that while he was singing the praises of good glassware and commanding me to drink out of the best, he was swigging back Pinotage from a wine-skin made from sheep’s bladders. So, you know, use it don’t use it.

THOU SHALT EXPERIMENT AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY

The Lord of Fermented Grape Juice told me that the true life of wine is found in variety. I suggested that he stole that line, you know, “Variety is the spice of life”? He smote me with a magnum of Quay 5 ‘light’ wine.

The Mighty and Mischievous Bacchus informed me that he has blessed the grape with such variety for a purpose, and it saddens him that so many choose to only drink one kind of wine, sadder still when they only drink from a single producer.

Drink much, he told me, but drink very different.

THOU SHALT KILL EVERY BOTTLE YOU OPEN

I felt happy that the God of Hedonism agreed with me on this.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOUR’S SPOOFULATED WINE, INSTEAD YOU SHALL LAUGH AT HIS MISFORTUNE

Listen friends, fellow followers of Bacchus, the big guy was pretty forceful on this one. He told me to tell you that we are to avoid all wines that are manipulated, oaked, and de-alcoholised to an inch of their natural selves – to abstain from wines that are marketed as any thing other than wine.

The Dark Purple Lord said we are to no longer dirty ourselves with wines that taste of the factory, and not the vineyard; wines stained more with the human hand than with the pure pigments of the grape skin. He got a bit carried away here and recited a rather long poem about grapes, nymphs and the power of the moon. I asked about cows’ hooves and he simply scoffed.

THOU SHALT STOP BOTHERING WITH ALL THIS FOOD AND WINE MATCHING NONSENSE

The King of Quarts, and Prince of Pinot told me in a rather bemused voice that all this finicky choosing about what must be drunk with what food is mere pedantry. While he concedes that a true match of food and wine is one of the more sublime things on his weekly schedule, it is something that is best left to happen naturally.

He commands us to go out and drink and eat like him: copiously while grinning. We must not get bogged down with the details and miss the bigger picture. Rules, even those of the thumb, do not work with drinking wine, of that he said he was sure.

I asked him, with the courage of a few bottles of Chenin, that surely these commandments were also rules. “Commandments from Bacchus are very different to rules,” he thundered. He proceeded to open some very good Burgundy, so I left it at that.

THOU SHALT REMEMBER MY MAXIM: DRINK AND BE MERRY

I am still not convinced that the Big B in the Sky really came up with this one, but by this point he was getting a touch belligerent, so I let it slide.

Swaying like a snake, and clutching his wine-skin as if it were his mother’s bosom, he said the very reason he had bestowed a drink beverage as simple and epic as wine upon the human race was because we’re all a bunch of sad-acts and looked like we needed cheering up.

To get all up in knots about it, to get angry about a shite wine, or to complain bitterly about a wine being too dry or sweet is to miss the point entirely. “In Vino there may be Veritas” he said slurring, “but in merriment lies the Muse.” The god collapsed then, and I left him to sleep it off. I could already see the hangover coming, and I knew it was going to be a doozy.