1964s for a half-century

The great treat last weekend was celebrating a wine-loving friend's half-century with nine wines from his birth year. As Bordeaux lovers will know, 1964 was a very varied vintage there, thanks to a fortnight of rain from 8 October, so that those who picked before then made very much better wine than the rest – not least because the summer had been so hot that the French minister of agriculture declared 1964 the vintage of the century in August. In those days the vintage start date in late September was commonplace and many top Médoc estates were caught out by...