Dong's Impressive Cellar

When BathNick came to stay over the weekend that I pranced about pretending to be a Dutch librarian, he and BathZena made use of Dong's generously offered accommodation. To wit, we didn't have quite enough room for everyone, so we farmed the Bath based twosome out to Dong's pad for the duration; Dong not being in residence himself at the time.

BathNick and Bathzena are perfect house guests; clean up after themselves, buy cat food even though the host might not actually have a cat...you know the sort of thing.

All of which is by way of saying that BathNick wasn't sticking his nose anywhere he shouldn't when he chanced upon a bottle something rather decent. A Chateau Latour 1982 which Dong has generally kept in appalling conditions for wine - in the light, in the living room where it's subject to changes in temperature.

BathNick was sufficiently impressed to remark on Dong's obviously fine cellar if he could have a bottle of that value just lying around. I should point out that minimal research on the internet this morning has valued a bottle of this stuff at £1650.00 - just a tad beyond most budgets.

I mentioned BathNick's comments to Dong and he kindly decided that the best thing to do would be to bring the bottle around to Millbrooker Towers for a film club outing. "A bit rich for film club," you might be thinking.

Here's Dong's bottle on that very night, next to a rather decent Cornish Piskie Red (which at 14.5% was a bit of a sledgehammer, but very tasty).

And here's the cellar owner himself doing with such a bottle exactly what should be done.

Indeed, sad to report, none of us knows what a 1982 Latour tastes like but a candle in the shape of such a thing burns remarkably well. It seems that BathNick might have missed the wick sticking up through the "foil" at the top the neck. Still, proves he's the perfect house guest: he couldn't have touched it, wax feels considerably different to glass.