Desperate character, northern drunk lying about winemaker? (9)
I believe the answer is:
dandelion
'winemaker?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't see how they can define each other.
'desperate character northern drunk lying' is the wordplay.
'desperate character' becomes 'dan' (Desperate Dan the comic character).
'northern' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, letters go up or 'north').
'drunk' becomes 'oiled' (I've seen this before).
'lying' becomes 'n' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'oiled' written backwards gives 'delio'.
'dan'+'delio'+'n'='DANDELION'
'about' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dandelion that I've seen before include "salad plant" , "One blooming" , "Common yellow-flowered weed" , "Common yellow-flowered plant" , "Wild plant with "clock"" .)
