I thought purple pagers might enjoy an insight into the domestic life of perhaps the most fanatical and fastidious wine collector of my acquaintance. He – yes, it is a man – has a true collector’s nature whereby two immaculate cellarsful plus copious wine in storage is never enough to supply the precise wines he has in mind for a dinner.
There is always a theme, needless to say, whether it is the wedding years of the guests (for which he had to buy Opus One 1979 – drinking brilliantly alongside Haut Brion 1979 – for last Saturday night) or...