Fill her up my good man.

In the small French Provencal village where I spent a fine fortnight some years back there is a tiny and quite fabulous wine shop. Each and every morning as I strolled au Centre Ville, en route to the boulangerie for the daily supply of freshly baked bread, I would nod politely to M. Gibet as he sat serenely outside his shop smoking one of those little cigars you get in tins whilst reading the morning paper. Beside him, lying dutifully at his feet sat Armand, as stout a poodle as you will ever have seen who's only evidence of life was the occasional yelp he made in his sleep as he dreamt, I suppose, of worrying French sheep.

Now back home, we have a strange impression of a French wine shop. Most who have never visited one would imagine it to be a fine establishment with majestically racked wines of all vintages and characteristics. A shopkeeper with a canvas apron as well would probably be high up there in the imagination. And there's no doubt that places like that do exist and very fine they are too. But M. Gibet's shop is a wonderful antidote to those chattering chardonnay classes who would have us drink only the right sort of wine at the right times and with the correct foods.

The great thing about M. Gibet's shop is that he will happily fill your empties at a fraction of the cost for the bottled article — and all he asks for is modest remuneration and that your bottles are clean (actually, I suppose all he really asks for is the money, it's up to you if you want to put fresh wine in dirty bottles). For inside his shop, its coolness enhanced by the basic render finish on the walls (very minimalist, very noughties!) lie 6 enormous plastic vats each with a small blackboard hanging from the kind of nozzle and hose affair you might see on an old fashioned petrol pump. And scribbled on each in that typical French cursive script is what serves for a label promising such transports of delight (in those glory pre-Euro days) as "Cote du Rhone, 11.5%, 12f/l" or "Cotes du Rhone 13.5%, 14f/l" and even (my personal favourite) the "Cotes du Rhone 15%, 17f/l". The signs do not even tell you if the wines are red or white – it is self evident through the translucence of the huge plastic vats.

When it comes to vintage though, it is important to remember that these are young wines. So young in fact that they are hardly out of nappies. Their vintages are measured in terms of months rather than years (ah yes, the October 1999, 15%, that was a great month!) but what they lack in maturity they make up for in youthful charm and vigour – as well as a frighteningly high alcohol content in some cases. These are wines for supping over a hearty plate of pasta; for those occasions (in our household at least) when we just want to slump down in front of the TV and not have to think, and what's more, not have to pay too much for a drink to make the programmes seem better than they actually are.

But the real beauty and pleasure comes when your bottle is down to its last drop. You don't throw it away, or set it aside for recycling in the big skip down at the supermarket sense, but simply give it a good rinse out, sterilise it if you must, then take it back along to the charming M. Gibet the following morning and say 'fill it up my good man' (along with the other dozen empties you have).

Believe me when I say life is so much simpler down there: bread is freshly bought each morning; local farmers sell their own produce at the local markets every week without fail — not for me those stupid little plastic containers with a few meagre sprigs of herbs which are strangely prevalent back here in Ecosse — and I don't have to stand in front of huge ranges of bonnes vins, trying to decide which of the 300 or so different varieties from the new world will satisfy my palette; just stick the nozzle into the bottle and pull the trigger.