My birthday bash with lovely wines and even lovelier people

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My birthday bash with lovely wines and even lovelier people

birthday
Me, David Shaw, Emily Harman, Natalie Christensen, Greg Sherwood

I had a big birthday recently. I’m not going to bore you with some intense post on time, ageing and pseudo-profound thoughts on how age brings more than it takes away, and that we are just playing a role, and we pass the baton on – rather, I wanted to mark the lovely gathering of wine friends at the Winemakers Club to celebrate this event and to drink some very nice wine. Some of these pictures are from my phone, but most were kindly taken by Anne Burchett on a proper camera.

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Norm Hardie, Sam Harrop (back), Duncan Savage, Raj Parr, Ben Henshaw, Emily Harman and David Cawston

It was a really great crowd, and the wines were lovely and special. For once, I took no notes, and instead drank. One of the benefits of the location is that we had a pretty much endless supply of Zalto glasses thanks to Daniel Primack. Drinking out of Zalto makes a huge difference.

I didn’t know in advance who was coming, so it was lovely to see international guests Dirk Niepoort, Rajat Parr, Duncan Savage, Sam Harrop, Norm Hardie, Brian and Marion Smith, and Mick Craven, who’d jiggled their itineraries so they could be in London on this day. That was really cool.

birthday wines

These four were all very special. The Prum and Allemand Reynard 2000 were both spectacular in magnum. The Lanzerac Pinotage is from 1969 and was really superb. And Initial is always amazing.

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The top wine is a Ganevat magnum we brought back from the Jura. The Monsanto Chianti Classico from 1973 was in super-large format (double magnum) and was lovely. 1985 La Chapelle was gorgeous in its maturity and the Maures Kadarka was poised and elegant.

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These were all lovely, too.

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And these!

Mark Andrew, Emily Harman and Anne Jones
Mark Andrew, Emily Harman and Anne Jones
Brian Smith and Anne Jones
Brian Smith and Anne Jones
Mark Andrew and Michael Sager
Mark Andrew and Michael Sager
Ruth Spivey and Daniel Primack
Ruth Spivey and Daniel Primack
David Shaw, Norm Hardie and a big bottle of Chianti
David Shaw, Norm Hardie and a big bottle of Chianti
Greg Sherwood, Dirk Niepoort, Jamie Goode
Greg Sherwood, Dirk Niepoort, Jamie Goode
Christina Rasmussen and Rajat Parr
Christina Rasmussen and Rajat Parr
Mick Craven
Mick Craven
1 Comment on My birthday bash with lovely wines and even lovelier people
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

One thought on “My birthday bash with lovely wines and even lovelier people

  1. Wow! I think you can say you’ve definitely arrived, with that guest list. Looks like a great night and happy to see some wines from Tenerife making the grade. Congratulations.

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