BEFORE we start today, can I tell you that this week’s column is done as a sketch. If you read the Telegraph or drink fine wine you will understand what that means, but if you don’t, some of this may offend so if you are a single man aged 40 and sporting a beard, you’d best open another can of 12-for-a-tenner before you read on.

They say it’s a man’s world, or at least that’s what women say, but do you ladies ever stop to think how complex a man’s development is? Survival is a matter of instinct and knowing when it’s your time and turn to adapt and our development via alcohol is typical of our struggle.

Women of all ages can drink what they like and no-one judges. You can drink pints or shorts at any age, and while the former may not mark you out as one to introduce to grandma it seems acceptable to your fellow ladies. You can drink fine wines or awful sweet items and it’s all okay, but for men there are different rules for different ages – and I thought we should take a look at the travails of man as he charts his alcoholic course through life.

You start off as a teenager eager to try the charms of beer when you finally take your first drink aged 16 or so (18 in my case but much much younger these days), but when the dream finally happens no-one wants to admit that the awful sour liquid flowing down your throat is actually horrible. So you grimace at your mates with the sort of smile you normally reserve for when you are trying to persuade them that you dumped her, not the other way round.

Some lads drink enough of that awful beer stuff that their tastebuds get used to it and eventually they persuade themselves that they really like it, but the more educated ones lean towards a smooth Belgian lager by their early twenties. This is around the time that doing the circuit of pubs on a Friday and Saturday has ceased to be exciting and you’re starting to feel like a loser unless you already have a girl on your arm. If you don’t have the latter you gather with similar groups and persuade each other that you haven’t sold your mates out for a woman yet and that it’s cool to be free and single.

It’s about this time that you are basically a bag of hormones and bones and the mating urge is so genetically strong that it crosses your mind every ten seconds or so, day and night.

Some people remain forever in a cycle of one-off dates or no dates at all, just going out with an ever-dwindling group of men with bald patches developing on the top that they make up for by getting another manly tattoo or shaving the lot off, growing a beard and looking like a monk on steroids. I’m afraid this group of people will never mature to enjoy the charms of fine wines and, later on, fine ports. How sad, but then if all men were intelligent and got a taste for fine wine the price would go up so here’s to the losers!

If you have found a lady friend by your early twenties, lager gives way to a shandy or to volunteering to drive to avoid the all too familiar brewer’s droop. But just when you are starting to adapt to your new self she breaks the news that the test was positive and the sickness had nothing at all to do with your mother’s cooking. Congratulations! It’s grown-up time, but along with the responsibility comes the urge to show you really have joined the middle class and you buy your first bottle of wine together. Granted it’s probably something revolting and totally wrong like Concorde Peach or you skip that stage altogether and move straight into feeling confident enough to order a bottle of Piat d’Or from the local off-licence. This is a dangerous stage because both these trial wines are so awful that you can easily slip back into beer followed by divorce, maintenance payments and seeking out your bearded old pals again, who by this time have started to develop beer bellies and matching beer goggles.

Marriage soon follows and you realise you’re spending far too much time looking at pink baby clothes and duvet sets so you come to enjoy that glass of wine when the baby has gone to bed and over the next few years, as your tastebuds develop, you look back at your former self who bought that Concorde Peach and chuckle to yourself when you realise just how sophisticated you’ve become. Not only are you buying wine for more than £2.99 but you’re confident enough to talk about it with friends, albeit only when they come round to yours.

As the kids grow older and the only time they come round for dinner is Christmas, you become determined to school them towards sophisticated alcoholic habits such as wine rather than making all the gut-rotting bad mistakes you made early on. After all it’s now the 21st century and you can now go to a bar with a male friend and order a bottle of wine together without people buying you Dolly Parton concert tickets or reserving seats for the ballet for you for Christmas.

This drive to teach the kids in turn drives you to learn and experiment more yourself so your spending on wine increases, as does the range of grapes. No longer are you stuck with Merlot for red and Chardonnay for white: by the age of 45 you’re drinking adventurous styles such as Rioja and wondering why such stunning liquid never passed your lips decades earlier.

By the time you reach your mid-fifties, your tastebuds are looking for a new, richer challenge and this is where most men split off into one or two camps. You either start to enjoy fortified wines such as port and sherry or you decide it’s once again time to show you are a man and you head towards single malt whiskies and cigars. Men spend their last 30 years on the planet trying to persuade their grand kids that grandpa would prefer a vintage port or Chablis to three new sets of old man’s undies.

However there is good news on the horizon because I’m told that the male’s hormonal drive to chase the ladies starts to wane aged 89 and disappears completely aged 100.