My paternal grandfather had vineyards. He kept the wine in big oak foudres, (wine barrels) at a warehouse that was some steps away from the house.

Some Sundays he would invite people for lunch at their big dining hall. My grandfather would present the guests with a certain kind of wine. He would have just a small carafe of this wine. After he was sure that everyone had tried it, he would ask the guests if they would like to have more with their aperitif.

Of course, they all would.

So my grandfather would take a big empty carafe and ask one of the unsuspecting guests to go to the warehouse and find the wine and bring it back for everybody to enjoy. The guest would be pointed in the direction of the warehouse.

Then the aperitif and other wines were brought in and then the lunch of many courses.

Usually, around dessert time somebody would remember the guest who had been sent to the warehouse to find the wine.

Then my grandfather would invite everybody to go to the warehouse to search for the missing guest. Invariably, the group would find that guest sound asleep next to one of the enormous barrels. The process to find the right wine consisted of trying each of the wines in the foudres. By the third or fourth test, the guest, not used to the high alcohol content in an unprocessed wine, would get totally inebriated and fall asleep.

I always noticed a particular twinkle in the eyes of my grandfather when the missing guest was discovered. He would arrange to transport the guest to a bed in the house to finish sleeping it off.

He would then ask the other guests for discretion and to keep the incident to themselves.