Desperate Dr Crane's beginning to drink wine (7)
I believe the answer is:
drastic
'desperate' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'dr crane's beginning to drink wine' is the wordplay.
'beginning to' says to take the initial letters.
'drink' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'wine' becomes 'asti' (Italian wine).
The first letter of 'cranes' is 'c'.
'dr'+'c'='drc'
'drc' placed around 'asti' is 'DRASTIC'.
(Other definitions for drastic that I've seen before include "Uncompromising" , "Severe, radical (measures)" , "'Dramatic, extreme (7)'" , "Having strong effect" , "Radical, far-reaching" .)