Six bottles chosen for being complicated, poured on the one date the calendar apologises for. Score each out of thirteen. Blame the rest on the moon.
6 guests + 6 bottles = 12. The thirteenth seat belongs to the date.
Fridays were unlucky. Thirteen was unlucky. For centuries nobody thought to combine them. The double-jinx only turns up in print in the 1800s, and the Knights Templar story (arrested Friday, October 13, 1307) was bolted on much later.
In 1907 the financier Thomas W. Lawson published Friday, the Thirteenth, in which a crooked broker uses the superstition to start a Wall Street panic. The book was a hit and the date never recovered.
In 1880s New York a dining society met on the 13th, thirteen to a table, walked under a ladder to reach their seats and spilled salt on purpose. They were out to prove nothing would happen. Mostly, nothing did.
One Norse tale has twelve gods sitting down to dinner in Valhalla when Loki walks in uninvited as number thirteen and ruins everything. Hence the old rule: never seat thirteen. We are seating six.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia: fear of Friday the 13th, built from the Greek for Friday, thirteen and fear. House rule: anyone who can still say it cleanly after the fourth pour gets the last of the Barolo.
Any month that opens on a Sunday carries a Friday the 13th. A year gets at least one and never more than three. 2026 drew the maximum: February, March and tonight.
Golden yellow with a fine, stubborn bead that keeps on rising.
Ripe pineapple, papaya, yellow apple, lemon peel, tangerine, acacia and marzipan, plus a waft of sweet holiday bread.
Bone dry, soft and fresh at once, closing on a mineral note.
Wine Spectator 91: incense, orange blossom and myrrh over macerated apricot, blood-orange sorbet and cured tobacco.
It ships with its yeast still inside. Stand the bottle on its head, chill it hard, then open it neck-down in a bowl of water so the sediment shoots out. The first ritual of the night.
Tropical fruit and spice, then honey, acacia flowers and a little vanilla.
Light, creamy and refreshing: lemon, apricot, toasted nuts and a stony, mineral streak.
Vinous 95 · James Suckling 94 · Wine Advocate 94 · Jeb Dunnuck 92. Between them: hazelnut, beeswax, chamomile, quince and a salty edge. Suckling's line: “more bones than flesh.”
The name means The Enemy. It spent fifteen months in French oak, about a third of it under flor, a living skin of yeast that floats on the wine. That veil is where the nutty, savoury funk comes from.
Ripe dark-skinned fruit, kitchen spice and new leather, with a cool menthol draft running through it.
Firm and chewy. Dried Morello cherry, raspberry jam, licorice and espresso on fine-grained tannins.
Wilfred Wong 92: bright ruby, refined berry aromas, a touch of oak. Wine Spectator 90: round and supple with cherry, blackberry, plum, flowers and chocolate.
Camp du Rouss is Piedmontese for the redhead's field. And in Italy thirteen is the lucky number; the day to stay indoors is Friday the 17th. At 15.5% this one makes its own luck.
Deep ruby going orange at the rim, the colour of a wine that has had time to think.
An intense rose bouquet with licorice and spice.
Full-bodied, austere and elegant. The winery says a tarry goudron note shows up after seven or eight years; this bottle is well past that.
James Suckling 94 · Wine Spectator 94 · Wine Advocate 93. Red cherry and strawberry turning to mushroom, forest floor, menthol, iron, tobacco and cherry liqueur. Spectator's window: 2025 to 2045.
Vintage '13. Thirteen years old. Opened on the 13th. If any bottle tonight is going to say something, it is this one.
Blackberry and aromatic berries, licorice, tea leaf, spice and a savoury, meaty shadow.
Rich and luscious with real weight, smooth fruit and a soft, lightly velvety fizz. A splash of younger Shiraz keeps it juicy.
James Suckling 90 · Wilfred Wong 90. Both call it full, soft and easy to like; a party wine with a dark streak.
Chook is Australian for chicken. Red wine, with bubbles, served cold: everything about it sounds like a mistake, and it is 13% on the nose. It works anyway.
Deep and rich: dried apricot, golden raisin and fig, sweet spice, and a lick of salty licorice.
Luscious and silky, properly sweet, with a nutty, sherry-like edge. Assyrtiko's acidity keeps it upright and the finish goes chalky and faintly salty.
Mostly Assyrtiko from ungrafted vines said to be over 200 years old. The grapes are laid out in the sun for about ten days until they shrivel, then ferment slowly on their own. Estate Argyros has been at it since 1903.
Carried home from Greece by Nolan and Sarah. There, nobody flinches at Friday the 13th; the cursed day is Tuesday the 13th. The blue eye is a mati, the charm that stares bad luck back down. And the label reads 13%: the third bottle tonight to land on the number.