A life of wine

LOOK, N K Yong said to me as he flipped through the Visitors Book in the hallway of his Draycott apartment, circa early 80s. "Before, all my visitors were doctors, surgeons and professors. Now they are all winemakers, wine merchants and wine writers!" Then he let out a chuckle in that deep baritone familiar to those who knew him. It summed up the two halves of the life of Dr Yong Nen Khiong, better known as "N K" Yong.

The visitors book occupied a prominent position in his home back then, when he started having friends round for wine dinners. He called it the Draycott Wine Club. Among those invited was my father. I was nearing the end of my National Service and often tagged along before I went to university in the UK. The DWC dinners were a portal to another world - the world of fine wine.

One such dinner included Chateau Mission Haut Brion 1964 and Graham's 1927 - a legendary port vintage, which he proudly showed my father, as they were both born in that year (by another quirk, N K and I shared the same birthday). It was not unusual to come across such gems at N K's dinners, such was his zeal for collecting the finest and his generosity in sharing them.