Over nine days recently I was ridiculously lucky enough to be treated to no fewer than five very serious wine dinners – serious as in the quality and age of the wine rather than the demeanour of the attendees. Vintages included three from each of the near-mythical 1959 and 1945 and two each from the famously long-lived 1928 and the best wartime vintage of 1943. If the dinners had taken place in the last century, chances are that my hosts would all have been British. But among these modern-day hosts only one of them was from the UK, a neighbour with a particularly enviable cellar. The others were born in Hong Kong, mainland China and, in the case of the last two of these dinners, in Greece.
近九天的时间里，我的运气可以说是出奇地好，参加了至少五场非常隆重的葡萄酒晚宴。这隆重不仅仅在于来宾的举止，主要指的是晚宴葡萄酒的品质和年份。葡萄酒的年份包括来自传奇年份的1959和1945各三款，以及以陈年潜质著称的1928两款，还有被称为二战时最佳年份的1943两款。如果这些晚宴发生在上个世纪，那么主人们肯定都是英国人。但是现在情况不同了，这几场晚宴中，只有一位东道主来自英国，是我的邻居——他的酒窖实在令人艳羡不已。其他的除了来自香港和manbetx3.0 内地外，最后两场的主人来自希腊。