Blowout in Manhattan

A wine-loving friend in Washington DC has brought the following extraordinary account of four meals, more than a hundred wines and, we hope, no funerals, to my attention.

This extended grande bouffe at four different New York restaurants where some of the greatest wines of the last century were assayed took place at the end of last October.

Anyone with some time to spare will, I'm sure, enjoy the vicarious thrill of consumption, and anyone who has participated in anything at all similar may recognise the distinct phenomenon of palate and pleasure fatigue. The following, for example, is the antepenultimate paragraph of...