The Bordeaux Club: The Seventy-Year Story of Great Wines and the Friends Who Shared Them

• Authors: NEIL McKENDRICK
• Publisher: Academy of Wine Library
• Language: English
• Publication date: 11/2022
• Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
• Number of pages: 384
• Weight: 1089g
• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: 9781913141349

Gourmand Awards Winner 2023 — Best of the Best, Book of the Year UK

Presentation:

The story of twelve friends brought together to share and celebrate the extraordinary wines of Bordeaux. Driven by a shared passion for wine, they differed profoundly (sometimes disturbingly!) in personal wealth, lifestyle, and circumstances. Their opinions, always expressed without reservation, had the power to stir up anger and divide friendships as easily as they could strengthen them.

Neil McKendrick , a member and minute-taker for fifty-seven of the Club's seventy exceptional years, tells the story of this convivial group with the rigor of a Cambridge scholar (he is a former Master of Gonville and Caius College) and the humor of a born raconteur. He celebrates the beauty of great Bordeaux and the splendor of the places—from stately country houses to rickety Dickensian boardrooms—where these men were lucky enough to dine, while evoking vintages we will never see again.

• “Over 1,000 bottles consumed…” : The greatest Bordeaux wines described by the brilliant Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent and Steven Spurrier.
• Judgments and opinions of the historian Sir John Plumb, "the rudest man in Cambridge."
• 1865, 1929, 1945, 1961, 1985, 1990... : the highlights of these six emblematic Bordeaux vintages revealed.
• Haut-Brion, Lafite, Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux and Latour : The premier crus of the Médoc appreciated by the finest palates.
• From the grandeur of Saling Hall (Essex) to the imposing Master's Lodge at Caius College, Cambridge : 16 perfect settings for enjoying wine.
• Keeper of the Deepest Cellar (and Husband to the Most Scandalous Wife) : The Irresistibly Scandalous Life of Lord Harry Walston Explored
• The author's notes on his extraordinary £1 purchases from the Caius College cellar (Latour 1928, Lafite 1945) – sold at this low price because the deans couldn't drink them with pineapple...
• Abominations and Anomalies : The wines that sparked controversy – from white Burgundy to Moscato d'Asti, including the much-discussed 1927 clarets.

The author

One of four children raised by a young widow—his father having been killed in the Second World War— Neil McKendrick grew up in a household where alcohol was absent. His conversion to wine came about through “a series of distinct moments experienced on a single staircase in a Cambridge college.” He continued his journey at Cambridge, becoming the 40th Master of Gonville & Caius College, where he is now a Life Member. Neil’s passion for wine has also endured; he was a member and Minutes Editor of the Bordeaux Club for 57 of the Club’s exceptional 70 years.