The kindness of strangers led to an exceptional wine tasting, “Rarities,” on Saturday morning.

The French wines were collected in the 1980s by a local family and donated anonymously to the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival.

It was enough for 50 guests to taste 12 wines mostly from Bordeux, with two from the Rhone region. Price of a seat: $295.

How special were these 26- to 34-year-old wines? “For most of us this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” master sommelier and host Roberto Viernes said. He estimated the value of the wines as up to $1,100 per bottle.

They represent a classic time in Bordeux, Viernes said, before wines of the region turned more ripe and oaky, when they were more elegant and pure.

But here’s the thing: Not all of the wines were at their best. That’s not the point of a tasting like this, when some of the wines just have too much age on them.

Despite the price, despite the pedigree, all the tasters understood that some of the wines would be past their prime.

The idea, is to capture a snapshot in time, “a thumbprint of Bordeaux” in a classic era, Viernes said.

Added panelist Richard Betts: “These wines don’t exist like this anymore.”

He called the ’80s a time before “spoofilation,” his term for when wines become “a gross caricature of themselves.”

Still, only the first glass, a 1989 Chateau Troplong-Mondot Premiere Grand Cru Classe B from St. Emilion in Bordeaux was universally decreed over the hill.

The panel of four master sommeliers named two favorites: the 1989 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion Cru Classe and the 1989 Jean-Louis Chave Heritage.