Over nine days recently I was ridiculously lucky enough to be treated to no fewer than five very serious wine dinners – serious as in the quality and age of the wine rather than the demeanour of the attendees. Vintages included three from each of the near-mythical 1959 and 1945 and two each from the famously long-lived 1928 and the best wartime vintage of 1943. If the dinners had taken place in the last century, chances are that my hosts would all have been British. But among these modern-day hosts only one of them was from the UK, a neighbour with a particularly enviable cellar. The others were born in Hong Kong, mainland China and, in the case of the last two of these dinners, in Greece.
近九天的時間裏，我的運氣可以說是出奇地好，參加了至少五場非常隆重的葡萄酒晚宴。這隆重不僅僅在於來賓的舉止，主要指的是晚宴葡萄酒的品質和年份。葡萄酒的年份包括來自傳奇年份的1959和1945各三款，以及以陳年潛質著稱的1928兩款，還有被稱爲二戰時最佳年份的1943兩款。如果這些晚宴發生在上個世紀，那麼主人們肯定都是英國人。但是現在情況不同了，這幾場晚宴中，只有一位東道主來自英國，是我的鄰居——他的酒窖實在令人豔羨不已。其他的除了來自香港和中國內地外，最後兩場的主人來自希臘。