Arden Fine Wines is a supporter of worthy charities, including the Pink Ribbon Ball auction held by Breast Cancer Now, which to date has has raised over £4.5 million to help fund research and support for people affected by breast cancer.

We were happy donate a fine wine tasting and lunch at our Mayfair office for a generous bidder.

A date was agreed and some bottles taken out of the cellar for this important gathering.

The apéritif was a 1.5-litre magnum of our beloved Champagne Pol Roger Brut Réserve.

The weather was passable enough to allow us to enjoy this always beautifully fresh and brisk champagne on our roof terrace.

With the chicken main course, a magnum of Chateau Musar 2013 was opened.

This is a suave vintage of Musar, though it retains the characteristic “funk” of this great Lebanese red wine.

For the cheese course of Colston Bassett Stilton and Berkswell (an unpasteurised ewe milk cheese from my home county Warwickshire), a bottle of Taylor’s 1963 was decanted.

By consensus, this was the wine of the day (and probably of the year).

The outstanding quality of the 1963 Port vintage was apparent with this Wine Society bottling that came to us from a south London cellar. No rough edges, richly flavoured, and still going strong… Wonderful stuff.

Our guests were a thirsty bunch so a bottle of Château Doisy-Daëne 1953 was opened in exchange for a further donation to Breast Cancer Now. “I’ll swallow it”, I said.

It didn’t impress the guests as much as the Taylor’s ’63 but I liked it, even if a bottle drunk two years ago was superior. Still, it is 70 years old.

And so ended a very enjoyable afternoon of self-indulgence for charitable purposes…

Learn more about Breast Cancer Now at https://breastcancernow.org