A Visit to Alphonse Mellot, 2016: Tasting Notes
Our tasting was drawing to a close. Back at the entrance to the cellars Alphonse Mellot Senior was pulling the last few bottles from an under-counter cooler. I was beginning to wonder what this man did with his spare time, if indeed he had any, but it wasn’t long before the answer came. Alphonse’s mobile phone rang, and after taking the call he came back to where I was propping up the wine bar.
“That was a friend of mine. He is a professional pilot. Flying is a wonderful thing. I am a pilot as well, and I have more than six thousand hours of flying experience. I don’t believe in God, or religion, but up there, above the clouds, that is real beauty. In comparison, down here, on the ground, it’s all masturbation”.
Aside from noting yet another similarity with the late Didier Dagueneau, who was also a pilot, it struck me that Alphonse Mellot should perhaps have considered airline pilot as a career rather than bandit. Having drained our glasses, I was sad to have to part company with Alphonse. But it was lunchtime, and he was hot-footing it off for a date.
“My first wife lives over there”, he told me, gesturing towards a house just down the road, “my second wife also lives nearby. I have a third wife who I live with. But today”, he said with a shimmering glint in his eye and that same grin he had when he caressed the barrel, “I am off for lunch with somebody else”.
A sprightly septuagenarian indeed. Pass me a glass of that Sancerre. (11/10/16)
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