How to taste a great bottle
How can you sample some of the world’s greatest wines when they are so scarce and eye-wateringly expensive? Buying a precious bottle may dwarf the cost of the accompanying meal and diminish the experience. Many will remember the story of the Barclays Six: the bankers who ordered two vintages of Château Pétrus—the 1945 and 1947—at a London restaurant and tried to pass offthe bill as expenses. They spent £44,000 on wine. The public were understandably outraged and so were Barclays, who fired all but one of them. But what caught my eye at the time was the view of a French commentator who objected not to the vast expense but to the ordering of a second bottle. There was no need to do so having had the experience of such a rare treasure; and they had taken one more precious bottle out of circulation, depriving others of the experience.