One of my abiding memories from my days editing Decanter magazine comes from the panel tastings we used to hold in the 10th-floor executive suite overlooking the Tate Modern. Twice a month, an august selection of wine writers and buyers would gather to give their verdict on a particular subset of wine. There were plenty of Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhône tastings; a few Tuscan and Piedmont gatherings, the odd Rioja, German or Australian interloper, and occasional Californian, South African and South American arrivistes (it is to the magazine’s credit that tastings today span a far wider array of sources). But the most keenly anticipated of them all was that of the Médoc Crus Classés, with a few years’ bottle age.
After tasting and rating all the wines (blind), the panel would retire to the adjoining boardroom where there would be a discussion about winemaking trends, the merits of individual communes and the vintage as a whole, which informed the report published to accompany the scores. Then, the results would be revealed, the crib sheets handed out, and the tasters would check their verdicts to see which wines they had favoured. Invariably, with Bordeaux, the 1855 Classification was upended, and panel members were embarrassed – horrified – to find that they had rated Lafon-Rochet higher than Lafite. On one occasion, there was even a petition to ask what could be done to remedy this faux pas (nothing, but that’s another story…)
As the discussion descended into off-the-record chatter, the leftover wine
