The story of twelve friends who gathered to share and celebrate the extraordinary wines of Bordeaux. Like-minded in their love of wine, they differed wildly (often alarmingly!) in their personal wealth, life and circumstances. Their opinions, always voiced, had the power to ignite anger and divide friendships just as easily as they bound them together.

Neil McKendrick, member and minute-taker for fifty-seven of the Club’s seventy extraordinary years, weaves the tale of this convivial group with the rigor of a Cambridge academic (he is ex-Master of Gonville and Caius) and the humor of a born raconteur. He celebrates the beauty of top-class Bordeaux and the splendor of each setting – from glorious country houses to rickety Dickensian boardrooms – in which these men were lucky enough to dine, serving up memories of vintages the like of which we will never see again.

‘Well over 1,000 bottles consumed…’: Bordeaux’ top wines described by the brilliant Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent and Steven Spurrier

Verdicts and opinions from the historian Sir John Plumb, ‘the rudest man in Cambridge’
1865, 1929, 1945, 1961, 1985, 1990… the highlights of these six famous Bordeaux vintages are revealed Haut-Brion, Lafite, Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux and Latour – the Medoc’s first growths appraised by the finest palates.

From the grandeur of Saling Hall (Essex) to the extensively portraited Master’s Lodge at Caius College, Cambridge: 16 perfect settings for wine enjoyment

Keeper of the deepest cellar (and partner to most notorious wife), Lord Harry Walston’s irresistibly scandalous lifestyle explored

Notes of the author’s extraordinary £1 purchases from the Caius College Cellar (Latour 1928, Lafite 1945) – for sale at this low price because the dons couldn’t drink them with pineapple…
Abominations and anomalies, the wines that courted controversy: white burgundy, Moscato d’Asti and the contentious clarets of 1927