One of those lunches that was highly enjoyable, alcoholic, and sobering. Coming face to face with the wide world of wine and not meeting many sherries. Wonderful place this – and the world of sherry needs to do more to be here.

67 Pall Mall is a (the) private members club in a (the) prime location in London: if the window was open a practised arm could lob an empty wine bottle into the garden at St James’ palace. It is an absolutely top class neighbourhood – I won’t go through the full list of local establishments but suffice to say that it is just down the hill from Economist Towers and around the corner from Lock’s hatters.

More importantly once you get inside you have the world of wine at your feet. The wines displayed above represent only about 75% of the wine list (if you include the stuff on the lower level that you can’t see). Literally hundreds of bottles, and even more impressively they have an outstanding range of wines by the glass. I was unable to count them because the list comes on an ipad, complete with short cuts, and I am hopeless at counting and scrolling. Our lunch was based around the wines of burgundy and there was a frankly stunning selection of St Aubin, Corton Charlemagne, Meursault, and Volnay by the glass, so just imagine the possibilities if you choose to range more widely.

There was also the definition of expert guidance on hand: a top team of sommeliers lead by top man and madrileño Roberto Duran – a top bloke and one of the very few to have passed the Advanced exam of the Court of Master Sommeliers.

And the sherry presence? I must admit I didn’t study in much detail but it was good alright – some very solid wines from Equipo Navazos, Tradición and Hidalgo la Gitana by the glass, probably a few more by the bottle.

But it was another of these occasions where I was struck by how much the wines of Jerez and Sanlucar lose by not paying more attention to terroir and vintage. The sherries there were good alright, but some of the burgundies and clarets, and indeed many others, cost more by the glass than the finest sherries did by the bottle. Now I may spend my life swigging down sherries, and have got through a ridiculous number in the last couple of yeards, but even I was just struck by how many more possibilities there were elsewhere on the list: there were multiple vintages of some wines by the glass, for a start.

But those are really just symptoms of a broader issue. The wines on this list reflect, to an extent, the tastes of the members of this club, and whatever else is true that is a group of highly sophisticated wine lovers. The fact that there were relatively few sherries suggests to me that for all their quality and qualities, the wines of Jerez and Sanlucar have a bit more to do if they are to get back to the place they deserve.