Andrew Jefford 'Biodynamically grown, artisanally crafted - and free of chemicals, of course. Not so'

Welcome; come in. Please sit. Here’s a complex mixture of chemical compounds in solution, served in a black-glass beaker. It won’t kill you; trust me. Have a sip.

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Well? Are you going to do it? Put like that, maybe not. Yet all I’ve done is to welcome you to my kitchen table, and poured you a £8,905 serve (7.5cl) of the 2008 Domaine Leroy Musigny. I told you the truth – but was insufficiently precise. You were wary. Rightly so, since my description might also have described a poison.

You sniff and sip the Burgundy, now decanted into hand-blown crystal; doubtless, it’s wonderful (I’ve never tried). What a relief! Biodynamically grown, artisanally crafted – and free of chemicals, of course.

Not so. As I said, it’s a complex mixture of chemical compounds. Water, ethanol, glycerol, acids, polyphenols, polysaccharides: all these are chemical compounds or families of compounds. Chemistry is all around us. It’s the study of matter, its properties and its interactions. Organic chemistry anatomises life itself. Yet this vast subject and its necessarily complex nomenclature terrify – so we run.