Christmas numbers and magnums are natural allies. On Christmas Day we had 18 round the table, of whom an alarming proportion nowadays are wine drinkers (where did all those toddlers go?). An Australian friend kindly brought a magnum of Grange 1984 (magnum number 002, I noted) on the label) which was drinking beautifully – mild and gentle and sweet and spicy with rigour and alcohol but no excesses or either alcohol or tannin. It stood up perfectly well to a particularly good stilton before Noval 1974 colheita took over.
Before it, with the organic bronze turkey from Swaddles in Somerset, a...