It was the English summer at its most perverse. We were drinking Pimm’s while hoping against hope for better news from Old Trafford. As the clock ticked and the rain was unrelenting, one of our number emitted a groan which seemed to start from his boot soles. ‘Why can’t there be a bit of global warming in Manchester?’

The girls were growing restive. ‘I can just about put up with you lot discussing cricket, but not if it’s an excuse to talk about the weather’ was one eloquent complaint. A fair comment, so we changed the subject, while keeping a surreptitious weather eye on Manchester. All unavailing. The caravan of tension now moves on to the Oval. How much more can the human nervous system endure?

The conversation moved on to Anthony Powell. To general surprise, I confessed that he was one of my unreadables, along with Moby-Dick – never got beyond Nantucket – Daniel Deronda and Tristram Shandy, whose ‘jokes’ require a 300-yard run-up. I agreed that the world Powell describes is fascinating, but for me he fails to evoke it. This is no Chips Channon: by Proust, but out of Galsworthy.

Then again, de gustibus. The Anthony Powell Society has produced a little volume containing short pieces about wine. In one extract, Powell complained about a Royal Academy dinner at which the main speaker was Laurie Lee. By the sound of it, he had enjoyed far too extensive a repast to make a good speech. Powell was ready to be unimpressed; ‘Writer whose whimsical autobiographical novels I have found utterly unreadable.’ As regards Cider With Rosie, I concur, but for me As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is worth the whole of the Powell oeuvre.

The historical pieces in Anthony Powell on Wine are readable: the extracts from his Journals less so – the prose is covered in a thin film of dust. I remember declining to review them because I had no wish to inflict pain on the old Pooh-Bah and could not have gone further than the faintest of faint praise. One extract reprinted here reads: ‘We got back in time for tea, which was satisfactory.’ That is more than can be said for the editorial decision to reprint such banality.

Anyway, the washed-out cricket was followed by a treat which washed away the taste of frustration. I have mentioned a rich and secretive Californian friend whom I once steered in the direction of a cellarful of serious Burgundy. He decided that it was time to visit London and inspect his trophies, including a 2002 Chambertin-Clos de Bèze from Armand Rousseau. Though he has no intention of selling any of the treasures, he was delighted with the way they had appreciated in value. Now it was time to check the taste.

When I last drank it, for the first time, I concluded that it was one of the finest wines I had ever drunk, and that the House of Rousseau lived up to its reputation as probably the greatest Burgundian producer of the present era. There was no reason to change one syllable of that verdict.

When my pal first ventured into Burgundy, he did not know much about wine and was surprised to learn that a 20-year-old bottle could be regarded as a promising youngster. I reassured him that his prizes were still approaching their prime, and would remain there for years. I did offer to make regular tasting inspections to check that all was well in the vinous nursery – the favours one does for friends – but he declared that this would be unnecessary. He planned to be in town more regularly.

We drank other bottles which would be rated excellent in any other company. But that Clos de Bèze deserves to stand on its own: a very high place in my all-time wine XI.