My second-floor room in the Carris hotel was a mere bottle’s throw across a cobbled street from the historic Factory House, a de facto clubhouse for the British port shippers in Oporto, northern Portugal. When I woke at 7am, I could see the Wedgwood-blue ballroom swarming with people hard at work decanting the three bottles of each of the 19 great vintage ports we were to taste that morning. When the tasting started at 11.30am, we were warned that this exercise was a one-off. That morning half of the world’s stock of Cockburn 1896, for example, would be opened, and there would be only four bottles of the 1912 left after our predations.
我在凯黎世酒店(Carris Hotel)二层的房间，与那个历史悠久的酒庄不过是一条鹅卵石铺就的小路的距离。这里是英国波特酒商在葡萄牙北部波尔图的俱乐部。当我早上7点醒来时，看到在那韦奇伍德蓝(wedgwood，英国著名瓷器，粉蓝色为其招牌色——译者注)色调的宴会厅里挤满了人，正专心致志地将我们即将品尝的19种极好的年份波特酒各醒三瓶。在11点半的品鉴会开始之初，我们便得到提醒说，这样的体验不会再有第二次。举个例子，在那个早晨，全世界一半的考克伯恩(Cockburn)1896都被打开了，而经过我们的扫荡之后，仅仅只有4瓶1912年份得以幸存。