Urgh, I feel awful. I’m sitting at my desk the morning after, nursing the hangover from hell and racking my syrah-soaked brain trying to remember whether I committed anything deplorable last night. The signs aren’t good, people won’t look at me and my red eyes tell the sorry story of a man with a wine appetite not commensurate with his tolerance. I’d do it all over again, though. Just sayin’.

The reason so much wine got drunk was Frédéric’s fault. And no, he isn’t a Gallic, debonair drinking partner with a penchant for Gauloises and pinching women’s arses. Frédéric is a cutesy bistro in Maidstone, named after the Chef-Patron’s eldest son, hiding behind the Hazlett Theatre where some of the county’s most, erm, talented thespians hone their acting chops…then, presumably, go for pork chops and Dijon mustard afterwards.

I discovered the place a year or so ago and have been going back in semi-regular bursts, mainly, I don’t mind saying, for the wine. Frédéric boasts 800 different labels, half French, gathered from private collections as well as the trade. And the mark-up is very simple. Bottles retailing under £30 have £10 slapped on top and those over the £30 threshold have no mark-up at all. It simply means you are drinking delicious wine near its true value and not supermarket plonk at four times you pay over the counter. Immense!

And if you want to stop by and peruse and take a wine home, then Frédéric beats any local merchant. Ulric Allsebrook, aforesaid Chef-Patron and bred in the Dordogne, is knowledgeable and willing to speak regional specificity and terroir with anyone showing half an interest. In fact, it’s probably appropriate I apologise in print for taking up so much of his time with our wine wang-offs in the middle of the restaurant when he’s trying to get on with his, no doubt, busy day.

I should add, the food is good too. French classics both joyful in their simplicity and flavour. In the mid-noughties the UK fell out of love with its neighbour’s repertoire, as spicier and more casual dining movements took over. I saw it first hand when the French restaurant I worked in lost custom to a Mexican eatery a light throw away and, upon us closing due to the lack of business, we were replaced with another Mexican eatery. People love those damn fajitas!

Frédéric, to the contrary, is a booming business. Weekends in December are entirely booked up with not even room for a small field mouse to entertain his mistress. Good job, because this is hearty fare. I took my mother here a little while ago and she was served a duck breast of such epic proportions she exclaimed it must have come from a swan. Being they are protected under Royal Assent I would certainly hope she wasn’t correct, though a group of Eastern Euro extraction once barbecued a mute swan on the banks of the River Nene and Peterborough’s thriving tourism has never recovered.

The menu is full of the good stuff you want to eat. All the things that would give your cardiologist a murmur and have you grovelling to your padre for absolution. A delectably funky Mont d’Or, mushrooms on brioche, the smoky Morteau sausage in the choucroute, cassoulet, bourguignon, confit…it’s all here, a sort of greatest hits from regional France served at a beautiful pace as you sit amongst a temple of wine and make selections on which bottle to have next. It’s so distracting my companions often lose me to the racks lining the walls and I dip in and out of their conversations like an impassive schoolboy.

This time around I had a winter vegetable soup that contrived to be rustic and velvety all at once. The flavour was deep and the root vegetables had been sweated to within an inch of their lives in French butter and pureed to a gorgeous texture. Happily schlepping along beside it was a zesty and structured offering from Menetou-Salon, a commune adjacent to Sancerre and producing sauvignon blanc very nearly as compelling. It’s always a joy to find these lesser-known sub-regions showcasing classic styles and giving the consumer value for money. I recommend wine lovers to look out for Menetou and not forget who got you onto it when you begin garrulating like Jilly Goolden on a Blackpool hen do.

Into the main courses of bourguignon and turkey and I elected Château La Sauvageonne from Terrasses du Larzac, one of Frédéric’s wines by the glass, for the table. This is a powerful elixir, a blend dominated by syrah and near-16% volume under its bulging bonnet. At this stage of its youth it has dark fruit braggadocio and a backbone of minerals and integrated tannins. Larzac is producing wines with impressive purity and finesse in the medley of soils available in Languedoc-Roussillon and, like Menetou-Salon, is aping some of France’s more prestigious wines – I’m thinking Daumas Gassac et al. So impressed was I, I have a Sauvageonne now ageing at home and I’m fascinated to see how it will be drinking in three- or four-years’ time when the whiff of alcohol has mellowed and the fruit has given way to secondary and tertiary aromas.

Popular among the group, another bottle followed before we switched to a Laurent Betton Saint-Joseph from the 2008 vintage as the cheeseboards were set down. Frédéric has 5 regional fromages depending upon seasonality and availability and serves them at room temperature, as is de rigueur in the UK but utterly commonplace in France. The Époisses was particularly good, exhibiting the smell that once, as legend goes, had it banned from public transport in Paris. But sipping on the smoky, meaty, peppery Saint-Joseph it was a partnership beholden to appreciation and not redolent criticism, as nods appeared around the table stirred by the historic gastro union of wine and cheese. S-J is 100% syrah and the antithesis of Australia’s fruit-forward shiraz, though both have deservedly carved their faces onto Wine’s Mount Rushmore and are rightly admired the world over. Where it departs from its antipodean cousin is the lack of alcoholic ripeness and a harder tannin structure, meaning multi-generational longevity and, in my opinion, a more established sense of place.

Ulric’s wife, Sarah, is the pastry chef and creates cakes and desserts of real beauty and deftness. Mille-feuille, Paris-Brest, passionfruit roulade, macarons, to name a few, her counter is a little piece of city chic in the centre of Maidstone. Shut away it’s easy to imagine being in the centre of a sleepy French village, coming alive on Friday and Saturday night for a fête where food isn’t just an important part of the evening, but the evening itself. And the sweets augment the celebratory mood and naughtiness as the party surrenders to music and good wine. Speaking of which…

By the time the Chateau Massiac, Minervois, came, I had the phrase ‘three sheets to the wind’ twirling around my head. Glasses chinked together, false promises and grand plans were made with friends, acquaintances and strangers alike. The bill was picked up by a generous soul and the possibilities were limitless. What a restaurant! What a place to eat! What a place to drink! What a success it is proving to be!

MWB