The year 1982 is of huge significance in the world of wine. It was the vintage that marked the beginning of the modern era in Bordeaux, when ripe fruit was first accepted as fine bordeaux’s most desirable feature. Red bordeaux 1982s, at hundreds of pounds a bottle, are some of the most self-indulgent wines to which wine lovers can treat themselves today.

When the three people who qualified as Masters of Wine in 1982 invited me to a lunch featuring 1982s to celebrate their quarter-century as MWs I accepted immediately. Without even asking why they were a year late (because Liz Morcom MW had been ill and was moving house), I suggested they held the lunch chez nous rather than in a restaurant as I thought it would be more relaxed. In the event it was just as well for the group was the noisiest ever gathered round my table. Most restaurateurs would have thrown us out.