A plethora of riches

IT should be apparent to regular readers of this column that I place great store on patience. I have repeatedly encountered the astonishing and beautiful development of wines which have been stored upwards of 10 years - Chablis, for instance, starts out bone dry and closed at first sighting shortly after release, but transforms like Cinderella with maturity into lovely wines after a decade or more of storage.

Still, it needs more than just patience. It needs adequate storage capacity under the right conditions so that the wines can be left to slumber for a decade or more before being broached. A recent wine dinner with 1986 First Growths reminded again of this need for patience.

The 80s brought wine lovers and consumers into a New World of 100-pointers with the reviews and individual wine scores of Bordeaux 1982, published in the Wine Advocate in early 1983. The glare of publicity generated by Robert Parker opened the floodgates of wine journalism and the wine world has never been the same since. The 80s was memorable for quite a number of other vintages.