Missing out on 61 Palmer

Went to the Circle of Wine Writers (CWW) Chateau Palmer vertical tasting today. The CWW tastings are awesomely good, but sometimes active winewriters can miss out on places to less active older members, or wine correspondents for the Nuneaton Argus (I'm hoping such a publication doesn't exist) who attend these events for pure enjoyment rather than ever hoping to actually use the information for paid writing work.

I was under time constraints. I had to leave at 4.30 pm, which was the scheduled close time. But as we laboured our way through an initial flight of Alter Ego, and a seemingly endless barrage of rather inane or dull questions from the more vocal members of the audience, I just knew the tasting would over-run. We enjoyed a flight of 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001, and then turned to some blind pairs. 2000 and 1999; 1990 and 1989; 1983 (1982 should have gone here but was corked); 1971 and 1970. Some thrilling wines. I knew the next flight was going to be good, but I just had to leave - all those daft questions meant I'd run out of time. My worst fears were confirmed later by an email from Neal Martin, who I was sitting next to at the tasting. I'd missed the 1961, which was served along with the 1962.

That's life, I guess. I think I'm likely never to taste the 1961 Palmer. It is destiny. It was opened for a tasting that Lay & Wheeler put on for some journalists a year ago, but the sole bottle they had was corked, so I didn't taste it then, either. So I'm not thinking about what I missed, but rather the excellent wines I was privileged to taste.