Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Sauternes & Barsac
I was in that no man’s land between sleep and wake. Slowly prising open my eyes, I sensed the darkness of the room all around me. Through a crack between the curtains, two handkerchiefs doing their best to cover the tiny aperture behind, I could see the inky black of the night sky that lay like a blanket over Bordeaux. It was clearly still the middle of the night. Why, I asked myself, am I waking now? A question soon replaced in my brain (which can only cope with one question at a time) with, what time is it?
I rolled over on my folding camp bed, reaching out with some difficulty for my mobile phone, plugged in to charge up in a distant corner of the room. The figures were large, and yet I have noticed that they seem to be – with every new phone I buy – less clear than they were on the previous model. Why do phone manufacturers do that? Are they trying to kid me into believing my eyesight is deteriorating, and that I should get an eye test? Does Apple own shares in Specsavers? Eventually, with some concerted effort, my ciliary muscles contorting both lenses into never-before experienced extremes of accommodation, the phone (held a few centimetres from my face, which perhaps helped) reluctantly revealed the time to be just past 4am. I seemed to have a lot of questions spinning around in my head for the time of night. Appropriately, my original question now popped back to the top of the queue. Why am I awake now?
Other sensory capabilities kicked in to help with the answer to this one. A vague headache. A mild sense of dehydration. A dry mouth. I needed a drink of water. The preceding evening’s tasting of forty wines from the Sauternes and Barsac appellations could not be held responsible, for as always I had spat religiously. That had perhaps not, however, been true during the ensuing barbecue. I had consumed a small mountain of salty sausages. Well, can you blame me? After my first flight to Bordeaux had been cancelled thanks to an air traffic control strike, I had lived in Gatwick Airport for 36 hours. This had been my first taste of good food, good wine and good company for several days. And maybe – just maybe – I had washed down those sausages with a glass or two or three of Sauternes, everything from 2009 Château de Fargues and 2009 Château Climens to 1990 Château Gilette Crème de Tête and 1976 Château Sigalas-Rabaud, and perhaps one or two vintages between. This could, I suppose, have contributed to my feeling of thirst. I sat up in bed and swung my legs over the side, ready to hunt for my bottle of water in the darkness.
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