If anyone is offered an unusual back-of-the-lorry collection of wine in the Maidstone area, would they please get in touch with Ralph Steadman. The artist's cellar was burgled a few years ago and the thieves half-inched most of his favourite bottles. 'I lost £5,000-worth of wine in one stormy night,' he says, flanked by surreal, paint-spattered sculptures in the cellar of his house in Loose. 'All those racks you see over there were full of wine. I had some amazing bottles signed by winemakers I'd met around the world. Since the robbery, I haven't had the heart to fill most of them up again. I've still got a list of the wines.'

One cuvée the burglars left behind was Loose Bowels, Steadman's own wine, produced from 100 vines situated in a walled garden behind his studio. He planted Pinot Noir and Schönburger in 1991 and reckons he makes 100 litres of wine in an average year, bottling and corking it all himself. 'We've had one really good vintage in the last 11 years, but the rabbits have started to eat the vines now and most of them are dying.' The point of the vineyard is to provide Steadman, his family and friends with a bit of fun. 'I put Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on the stereo to inspire us as we carry the grapes to the press.'

Home winemaking is something of a family tradition. When Steadman was 10, his father went to a lecture at the town hall in Abergele, North Wales, and came back with a nascent interest in fermentation science. 'We lived in a council flat and the front room was soon full of blankets, buckets and pots. I can remember this gentle gloop, gloop coming from the corner. My father made a fermented substance that just happened to be called wine. It should have put me off for life, but somehow it didn't.'

The Steadmans used almost anything to produce wine, from potatoes and carrots to dandelions and tea leaves. 'They used to go to the greengrocers in Abergele and ask for bruised fruit. They would then cut out the bad bits and turn it into wine. My dad's favourite was elderberry wine, while my mum preferred what used to be called elderflower champagne.' Steadman says that when he was doing his national service in the mid-1950s, he made his own rice wine. 'That was a potent number, I'll tell you. Our other favourite drink in the forces was scrumpy mixed with Babycham.'

Steadman didn't develop an interest in decent wine until he was in his early fifties. The work he did with Hunter S. Thompson in the United States, which resulted in the publication of the timeless Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was partially fuelled by whisky, beer and hallucinogenic drugs, but not wine. 'I managed to operate in this state for two months. I remember covering the Patty Hearst trial with Hunter and being pissed all the time.'

The drawings for Fear and Loathing led, more than a decade later, to a phone call from Oddbins marketing director, Gordon Kerr, who asked Steadman to do something in a similar vein for the chain's new wine list. 'I told him I didn't know much about wine, but I did 10 drawings anyway.' The illustrations were so successful that Steadman did the list for 12 years and his art helped to define the Oddbins style.

To collect new material and inspiration, Steadman and his wife Anna travelled to most of the major wine producing regions at Oddbins' expense. As Steadman travelled, he became more interested in wine. 'Wine and art go together well. They both take raw materials and turn them into something three-dimensional. Wine is just another canvas.'

Steadman says that the English generally don't make good winemakers because they lack the right sensibility. 'They treat wine like a Women's Institute jam-making class.' Patricia Atkinson, owner of Clos d'Yvigne in Bergerac, is an exception. Indeed, Steadman numbers her white 1999 Bergerac Sec ('light and yet still full with a lovely balance between the Sauvignon Blanc and the Sémillon') among his six favourite wines. 'I read a piece about her making wine in the south of France and wrote her a letter saying she was doing what I wished I'd done 20 years ago. That's what made me start buying her wines.'

France occupies a further three berths among Steadman's half dozen picks. He recently bought some 1999 Château Beychevelle, St. Julien in honour of the writer, Bruce Robinson, whose favourite wine it is. 'I've seen Bruce walk around with a bottle in each hand. I can't afford to drink it all the time, but there's a warm poetry about the wine. It's a seamless trickle of pearls, or something like that. It's a seriously classy claret and it reminds me of a close friend.'

The other Gallic choices are 1998 Chambertin Clos de Bèze, which Steadman bought at his local wine shop, Plonkers, in Loose, because someone told him it was Napoleon's chosen wine. ('What better recommendation can you have?') And, in a different register, the sweet, hedonistic 1990 Clos des Capucins Gewürztraminer, Domaine Weinbach, Vendanges Tardives. 'Gewürz has a Gothic structure. The wine is so warm and rich that it's the kind of thing I want to drink a whole bottle of on my own.'

Steadman's last two picks both have Oddbins connections. The 1975 Carema, Luigi Ferrando is a Nebbiolo that was given to Steadman by the owner when he visited this beautiful region in Piedmont. 'He was the man who made me think about planting my little vineyard,' he says. The 2000 Montes Folly Syrah is an outstanding Chilean wine. 'I met Aurelio Montes years ago and he asked me to design the label for his new wine recently. It's a very special wine, made even better by the fact that I like the man who made it. I often find that nice people make great wines.' Which is more than Steadman can say for the 'little bastards' who stole his wine collection.

Ralph Steadman's top six:

1999 Clos d'Yvigne Bergerac Sec

1999 Château Beychevelle, St. Julien

1998 Chambertin Clos de Bèze

1990 Clos des Capucins Gewürztraminer, Domaine Weinbach, Vendanges Tardives

1975 Carema, Luigi Ferrando is a Nebbiolo

2000 Montes Folly Syrah