Sunday 11th October 2015

On Tuesday evening we had our first wine society meeting of the year. I am proud to have been elected one of four secretaries of the Rugby School Wine Society.  We were at the venue an hour early in order to help set up rows and rows of glasses, jugs of water and plates of wafer biscuits.  Then we were introduced to our guest speakers, James Naylor, the father of one of our secretaries and, Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler. James is director of Private Cellar, a successful wine merchant, and for whom Nicola is director of buying. These are big names within the wine industry and Nicola is one of only 340 Masters of Wine in the world.  I must admit my first impressions of them were not the best.  They made fun of the shape of the ‘goblet’ wine glasses we had painstakingly set out.  I suppose they were making the point that to fully appreciate fine wine you need the right glass, but it set the evening off with a slightly sour taste in the mouth!

After that though we had a great evening drinking six different French wines, my favourite being the Pouilly Fume, Domaine Thibault, Andre Dezat 2014 which had a fruity taste with a smooth smokiness over the top of it.  Surprisingly, and a good reminder that the things that cost the most aren’t necessarily the best, my least favourite was one of the more expensive wines, the Vosne Romanee Domaine Machard de Gramont 2008.  This struck me as unusually pale and translucent in colour and, compared to the others, tasted rather bland at the outset and slightly boorish when the flavour eventually hit you. Wine is such an interesting subject though.  Everyone can have their own views and your views can change.  Just like with people come to think of it.  Despite my initially impressions, when I was put out by their reaction to the glasses we had provided, both the speakers were very gracious and knowledgeable and we were privileged to have them come and talk to us.