Comfort in chaos

It appeared to be an uneven contest. A few friends were meeting for a festive wine-tasting, to compare and contrast some interesting bottles. The clarets opened with an Angelus ’98, a superb wine from an outstanding year. In response, the Palmer ’04 seemed to be outgunned. But, gaining strength from a bit more time in the decanter, it became increasingly formidable.

Words and wine: there is an unceasing struggle to translate wine into language without falling into euphuism or pseudery. This time, I felt drawn to a naval image. In its growing power, the Palmer reminded me of that early scene from Sink the Bismarck! Amid the grey skies and waters of the Denmark Strait, the watcher from the Norwegian resistance spots an even more intense greyness, as the great warship scythes through the waves, on her way to destruction and doom.

I then realised why the bottle was beguiling me into martial language. It was a Proustian madeleine moment. Around 1990, I drank a lot of Palmer ’61 with Alan Clark. Virtually his house claret, it was considered the equal of the first growths from that annus mirabilis, and priced accordingly. Not long ago, a single case was sold for more than £50,000.

Yet I could never taste what the fuss was about. A good drop of stuff, certainly; you would not have kicked it out of the glass. But up there with Lafite, Latour, Mouton? No. My friend Robin Bomer, who has an enviable cellar and a palate to match, concurs in my judgment. I am about to write something which will condemn me to the oenophile equivalent of an auto-da-fé. I think the 2004 I tasted the other evening was better than the ’61 was.