This cheeky little red? It's a Château Moi

It's 11 o'clock on Saturday morning and, worryingly, there are six empty wine glasses lined up in front of me. They aren't leftovers from a particularly hedonistic Friday night either; they're waiting to be filled with a six different reds, and I'm expected to swig each one of them. My dad, who I've brought with me on this wine-making day, and who is much less of a soak than I am, is giving me dubious glances. 'Where do we spit,' I ask Ian, our wine-making teacher, hopefully. He grins: 'We don't believe in all that. No spitting or you won't get the full flavour.'

My dad and I have come to Windsor to learn how to make wine. We've actually gone for a package that includes a night at the Runnymede Hotel, where we stayed the previous night, use of the spa at the hotel and a whacking great English breakfast. The hotel sits on the Thames, and as we sat in the sunshine earlier that morning, eating unnecessarily large quantities of bacon and pastries, we joked about how it was terribly sensible to be lining our stomachs and how extra scrambled eggs would be a good idea. Actually, they really were.

We'd made things slightly difficult for ourselves by having a fairly indulgent dinner the night before. By chance we were staying on a night when the Runnymede was hosting a 'wine and dine' dinner, so, sticking with our vinous theme, we gave it a go. Good though it was, by next day we were both feeling the effects of five different glasses of wine, a rich dinner and double helpings of fry-up. The chances of either us being intelligent about the six being poured out in front of us were looking slim.

However, we didn't need to worry. Ian and Pat, who own Grape Inventions, are the least intimidating or pretentious oenophiles you can imagine: once City workers, they sold their house and car to set up the business. Pat cheerily admits she 'can only barely tell the difference between red and white', which is probably not at all true, but put us more at ease. Ian has been making wine since his teens, and obviously loves it, but neither of them is interested in debating whether we're getting notes of oak or tobacco or spice.